Poetry
Publications
a selection from over the years
"Rights County Appalachia" in Kakalak 2022
3 poems The Center for Mennonite Writing Journal 2019
3 poems Carolina Mountains Literary Festival Anthology 2015
April 1864 Gateways 2012
Attention honorable mention in NCPoetry Society's Light Verse competition and published in Pinesong 2011
Last Song honorable mention in Binnacle's 2010 Ultra-Short Competition
Mt. Revelation Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine - June 2010
Lecture Hall Azaleas included in Lit by Language compiled by Genis Redmond a chapbook of poems from Asheville WordFest - 2009
When you are weary of circles - Honorable Mention in 2009 Spiritual Directors International Poetry Contest
3 Poems - Main Street Rag - Winter 2007/2008
Corn and Para La Tia de Mi Hijos in Kakalak Anthology of Carolina Poets 2007 & 2008
I Chew on My Dog Driver - Literary Mama - May 2007
A Farmers Work Finished - SouthLit.com - March 2006
Epidemic - Western North Carolina Woman - March 2006 (link)
Three Orange Nasturtium - Literary Mama - January 2006 first appeared in WNC Woman - October 2005
Buy Nothing Day 2005: Black Friday - The Mennonite - January 2006
March Madness - Artists for Peace Justice and Civil Liberties - 2003
We Rise to the Occasion - Mothering Magazine - May/June 2003 (link)
Haiku - a runner up in Kate's Global Kitchen food haiku contest - 2001 (link)
Books
Belonging a chapbook of poems published by Finishing Line Press (Winter 2011)
This collection of poems loosely chronicles my upbringing in a Mennonite community in the midwest and my move, as an adult, to the mountains of Western North Carolina. It also includes several poems folks may have heard me read or have seen in other publications...
"These Lost Counties," the poem commissioned for the 2008 Carolina Mountains Literary Festivalwhich I read at the banquet. This is the only place this poem is published other than in the handmade books created by the Slow Book Salon. (This poem includes wisdom from my Aunt Jean.)
"Under Grandma's Quilt" which I wrote about my maternal Grandmother Edith and read at her funeral.
"Buy Nothing Day" which appeared in The Mennonite.
"Corn" appeared first in Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets
Books are available on Amazon and at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville.
A lyrical Eve transplanted to mountain country from midwestern "flatlands," Britt Kaufmann has put down her roots amidst "kindred spirits of unlike minds" and found her voice among "those who didn't want to be found." These compelling poems with their abundant natural imagery remind us of the gracious capacity of language to help us claim our home in this world.
Ann Hostetler, author of Empty Room with Light: Poems and editor of A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry
Belonging—that word is the best possible title for Britt Kaufmann’s earnest, engaging, affectionate, and wonderfully enjoyable collection of poems. Be, says the land and the nature that enfolds it. Longing is what we feel when we gaze upon the land and try to search its meaning. This tight-knit sheaf is as inviting as an apple pie set to cool on a window sill.
Fred Chappell
Britt Kaufmann's Belonging brings the real world of a woman's experience close enough to touch, whether that reality be a child, a quilt, a garden, or what belongs to those underground streams that feed a woman's inner life. Her words call up the things of everyday life and make them last. This poet belongs unapologetically to that moment when joy pushes its way to the surface, like a crocus through snow, never hesitating to praise it and its many gifts, opening her arms wide to welcome its arrival. Kathryn
Stripling Byer , former North Carolina Poet Laureate (her blog)
Britt Kaufmann’s poems owe much to her Mennonite heritage in flatland Goshen. Transplanted to Southern Appalachia, she turns clear eyes on our abandoned tobacco barns, rock-ribbed heights, hardscrabble farms, tough good people. She sees a simple beauty in our rusticity. Whimsy, warm wisdom, a mother’s love, a good heart’s aspirations all live in these spare yet intricately woven lines; one hears unheard the four-part a capella harmony of her Indiana Sundays even as our mountain seasons turn, our rivers rise, our folk speak their highland talk.
Charles F. Price, author of Nor the Battle to the Strong (website)
