The Light Tears Loose

The Light Tears Loose
85 Pages
ISBN 978-1-4218-3632-4

Sky, trees, water, birds: though nature appears everywhere in Ballentine's work, it rarely does so for its own sake. It is more symbolic of internal or external struggle, development, and thought rather than as “pretty” detail. The poems in The Light Tears Loose move from illustrations of light into dark – then darker – territory before they morph back to light.

Past and present circumstances often feel overwhelming, but it is in seeking that “silver lining” that we find reason to move forward, to keep going when the way seems vague or threatening. Our fear in living does not keep us from experiencing love and beauty, friendship and brightness along the way.

As witnesses in the world, by connecting with nature, we can indulge ourselves with rest and renewal because we see it happen day after day, season after season. Darkness and winter come to us all but so do sunshine and spring. This is what we hold on to, even when the shadows creep so close we can’t breathe. Keep moving forward: on the other side is the light.

KB Ballentine

About KB Ballentine (Chattanooga, Tennessee Author)

KB Ballentine

Ballentine’s fifth collection, Almost Everything, Almost Nothing, was published in 2017 by Middle Creek Publishing. Two collections, The Perfume of Leaving and What Comes of Waiting, won the 2016 and 2013 Blue Light Press Book Awards. Published in many print and online journals, her work also appears in In Plein Air (2017), Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017), River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-first Century (2015), Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee(2013) and Southern Light: Twelve Contemporary Southern Poets (2011).

Ballentine received her MFA in Poetry from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She currently teaches high school English, theatre, and creative writing and adjuncts for a local college.

Learn more about KB Ballentine at www.kbballentine.com.