Publications
Of Valor and Consolation
Kyle Edward’s debut standard length chapbook, Of Valor and Consolation, was written to capture the internal dialogue that happens after spending time with loved ones. For instance, the questions we ask ourselves on the drive home. The collection explores how strength and solace are often held in different conversations; people communicate as much through silence as they do through speech.
The poems also move through young adulthood with attention to becoming something unrecognizable to others. They examine the rituals we invent to protect ourselves like a careful facade or a polished defense that often resembles courage. These recollections function to clarify who we become as we move through varied moments of life.
At its core, the chapbook considers vulnerability as a form of valor. The poems invite readers to indulge in their own emotional vulnerability as a gradual exposition of the softer self. True valor is buried deep beneath unyielding facades in a world that often rewards a hard exterior.
Strawberries on the Concourse
Strawberries on the Concourse was born out of seasons that singed the edges of a photograph, friendships that felt desperately good at the time, and the future homes the author imagined from his first writing desk. These poems move through the sweetness and strangeness of different phases, where the residue of childhood began to slip into something else, taking shape in ways that were difficult to name.
Throughout this body of work, Kyle Edward returns to the symbols that trailed him like a shadow: a single moment that stained a lucid summer, the low hum of an empty interstate, an uninhabited floating dock, and an attic window that seemed to age him decades in a single night. The writing catalyzes an attempt to preserve something finite before it disappears.
If there is a needle running through these pages, it is the simple desire to mark, or stain, what was fleeting before it faded. Within this mini chapbook, Kyle Edward hopes to awaken the reader’s own phases, their sweetness, and even their ache. If you find yourself lingering here longer than expected, don’t worry: these stanzas were always meant to be stained bright red with memories that refused to let go.
About the author
Kyle Edward is a poet and teacher who lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His poetry explores memory, emotion, social commentary, and growing up outdoors. He blends modern quip and traditional vocabulary to trace both rare and everyday occurrences. By day, he teaches elementary students reading fluency and writing skills.
Kyle began his writing journey during his time at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was inspired by the culture of western Massachusetts. He continued his graduate studies at Tufts University in Medford MA where he focused on promoting literacy and the natural world across American school systems.
For Kyle, writing became a strong voice of expression in times constricted by external pressures of relationships, accolades, and social expectations (in other words, twenty-somethings torture). It felt natural for him to reconcile an increasingly overcast adult life by remembering a youth spent knee deep in the ponds behind his childhood home.
Kyle is an active member of the poetry society of New Hampshire, and is always looking to connect with other authors and artists.