MEMORIAL WALL
KARI FLICKINGER Poet. Singer. Musician. Storyteller 16 August 1983 – 2nd May 2022
This page was originally Kari’s CEILING FAN book page and it feels only right to leave it here, while opening this space up to everyone who knew, loved and worked with her. A celebratory space of a artist with an indomitable spirit, even in the darkest of hours.
Sung from her skilful throat/ her ink-songs in operatic hold /
lungs breath-fed/
– a leaving drawn of sage and lemongrass/
she sings, still. Our mourner’s prayer …
The Kari Ann Flickinger Biennial Memorial Literary Prize & Memorial Wall Website
PRAISE & QUOTES
A visionary hallucinatory poemsuite of interconnected elliptical fragments, a submergence at world’s end, Kari Flickinger’s “Ceiling Fan” excavates pain and loss, spinning them with metallic blades of memory/betrayal, where the soul/ body duality is ruminative, harrowing, prophetic. Who is the “I”, the “we”, unclasped, disengaged; dragging musical rhythms and syntactical experiments, this is the flat-lined, staccato howl of somnolence & its after/image, where rage and exhaustion are a prescient spiraling anhedonia. Struggling for oxygen, Kari creates a fractious embrace for every wide-awake, broken-hearted reader. Her explosive, musical, meditative, and always luminous text, is complexly, visually orchestrated. A brilliant achievement, this night-crawl of enigmatic, all arch architectonics, is revenant ballet.
Robert Frede Kenter author of EDEN; publisher, Ice Floe Press www.icefloepress.net
Constructed as a brilliant extended metaphor for pain and loss, Kari Flickinger’s Ceiling Fan dissects the end of a relationship in a linked sequence of poems that are a meditation on the properties and attributes of the fan itself, and a masterclass in the poetic art of connectedness. Whether at rest or as a blur, the fan becomes a conduit for the stages of grief; an object observed with an intensity of focus that becomes redemptive; and, most impressively, an animate depiction of the human paradox in all its creative, destructive complexity. Flickinger’s ability to conjure precisely imagined locations—the call center cubicle, the blind-slashed kitchen window—keeps the sequence rooted and profoundly recognizable while the ceiling fan’s hypnotic power spins us out into a surreal vision of the loss of self in a chaotic universe. This multidimensional, technically dazzling, and emotionally empowering work never fails to impress and the last stanza will knock you into the quantum.
Jude Marr, author of We Know Each Other By Our Wounds
Kari Flickinger In Coversation, with Marcelle Newbold
K. Weber
I have been such a fan of Kari’s poems over the last few years. Reading her work feels so intimate, important and lingers long after. One of my favourite things about her poetry is hearing her read it aloud. The dimension her voice and the pacing she gives her words transcends how I read the poems on the page. Her rhythm is unique, unexpected and deeply affecting. Kari so warmly allows us a glimpse into places so sacred, special, difficult and emotional, in her work. Her kindness and support of others will echo alongside us always. Take good care, everyone!
Eat The Storms Podcast featuring Ceiling Fan read by Kari Flickinger
For details on each of the participants in the show
IN THE MEDIA Review by Mab Jones in BUZZ Mag WALES & an Interview in LONGLEAF REVIEW
Emma Lee
You sent me a playlist
(i.m Kari Flickinger)
It starts gentle, lapping waves
enticing me in, what do the deeper
oceans contain?
I don’t want to be dancing bare
foot on the beach, feeling sand
file the dead skin, expose
the tender layers to be bruised
by pebbles not yet worn to grains.
The sea’s buoyancy
makes the dance less harsh
but the tide pulls us back to the beach,
washing us in brine, regrets,
cleans our memories of love.
My laptop’s keyboard thumps when I press play,
as if a message is trying to get out
if only it could find the right medium.
LIVE LAUNCH With host Damien Donnelly and Guests
Kari Flickinger
Kari Flickinger, the author of The Gull and the Bell Tower (Femme Salvé Books). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She belongs to the UC Berkeley alumni. Her poetry is widely published in poetry journals and magazines.
Rare Swan Press thanks each of you, on behalf of the Flickinger Family and all her loved ones. Contributions to Kari’s Memorial Wall can be submitted to Rare Swan Press EDITORS
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