Kristine Iredale
Ars Poetica
Someone once told me poetry
is both burning and existing,
and after it's done burning.
The ashes are still there.
In the human heart,
there are four chambers.
But I believe poems
hold the invisible fifth.
A hidden chamber where
everything unsaid gathers,
the grief we carry
like stones in our pockets.
The questions we swallow
and the sparks
we're too afraid to touch.
Bio
Kristine Iredale is a poet and Iraq War veteran based in Washington State. Her work explores memory, grief, service, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. Her poems have appeared in university literary journals, and she continues to build a body of work centered on witness, place, and quiet resilience.