published poetry
A Concerto for an Empty Frame is out!
My third book (full length) A Concerto for an Empty Frame was released in October 2023 by Kelsey Books. The book is written in the shape of a concerto in three movements, one for each area of my life. Each poem is preceded by an Italian musical term, and the concerto is held together by several different motifs. Order through Amazon, Kelsey Books (Kelsayblooks.com) Barnes and Noble or directly from the poet: evrenios1@gmail.com.
Blurbs for A Concerto for an Empty Frame
This is a rare creation of song and scar, of vulnerability and both emotional and structural complexity. In Elizabeth Vrenios’ new collection Concerto in the Shape of an Empty Frame, the outer and inner, conceptual and human worlds mingle in accessible yet complex ways. Brimming with meditations on family, biology, mathematics, landscape, and personal identity, all woven through the language of classical music, these vibrant poems remain grounded in a universal familiarity that opens us up to something greater. If one of the aims of poetry is to condense our vast, contradictory, and beautifully human world into the briefest of songs, Concerto in the Shape of an Empty Frame stands as a testament to its possibility.
— John Sibley Williams
I had the privilege of being present during the birth of Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’ brilliant new book of poems, Concerto for an Empty Frame. And what a magical birth! Once Elizabeth alighted on the idea to meld these gorgeous poems into a concerto (using her considerable musical prowess), she was a woman on fire—a maestro at work. You can feel her passion singing through each movement of what is, after all, a heroine’s journey. A modern quest we embark on in, what else, a white Valiant after the opera. With poems Con fuoco, Furioso, and Lacrimoso, Ms. Vrenios deftly guides us through the initiation stage of this epic, to our heroine’s darkest nights of the soul—the shock and grief of a son lost to the tragic bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. And ultimately, to our heroine’s nostos, homecoming. I emerged, blinking at the return of light, and forever changed. Avanti! Avanti!
—Kim Noriega, author of Name Me
Reading Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’s new poetry collection is like listening to a powerful concerto by Mozart or Beethoven. Concerto for an Empty Frame is presented in the form of a musical score, complete with Italian notation. Even her definitions are poems, such as these lines from her definition of “concerto:”
1. “Mus: A piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.
2. One thousand yellow finches lift off a late summer river all at once.”
The three movement of her concerto lead us through the breakup of her marriage, the loss of her son in a terrorist bombing, and finally a stepping away from grief, as “Blue startles the air open like an egg.” Concerto for an Empty Frame is a brilliant work by a gifted musician.
Maureen Eppstein. Author of Horizon Line
Titan Book Review: https://wp.me/p3cyvH-sh1
Anthologies/ Journals
- Clementine. Alzheimers, Scarfskin
- Edison Literary Review. Harvest
- Kentucky Review. A Ledger Balanced
- Bethlehem Writers Roundtable. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue
- Silkworm. Childhood was not what she thought
- Poeming Pidgeon Ode to an Onion, On Fire,
- Unsplendid. Collage of a Pleated Cow
- Cumberland River Review. No Doubt About It
- Red Fez. ˆFather Teaching Me
- A Kind of Hurricane Press. Dressing for Christmas
- Broad Press. Gypsy Rose Lee Never Had a Mustache
- Feminine Collective. Frida, My Lover Does Not Deserve Black, Every Other Thursday
- Stories of Music. Piano at Five
- Evening Press. Departure
- The Binnacle. Darling Icarus, Diabolical Clock
- Form Quarterly Singing Villanelle to Icon #8
- Two Cities Review. Sorrows
- GFT Press. Kismet, Elegy for Mother
- Scissors and Spackle. Sealed Casket
- Page and Spine In Praise of November
- MockingHeart Review. When Death Splits the Air, Hi, Noon, Dandelions, Ravens as Gifts
- Noble Gas Quarterly. Dark Star
- The Hollins Critic. The Oldest Living Thing in Maryland
- Quatrain Fish. No Matter, Cold Hands
- Folliate Oak. While Eating an Apple
- NILVX. Song of the Suomalainen
- Indolent Books. Stoned Soup
- Fish Food. Do Not Open Before Christmas
- Haiku Journal Spring Haiku
- Gnarled Oak Practice Makes Perfect
- Passager Journal. I Hold My Childhood Picture
- Front Porch Review Alternate Truths, The Truth about Childhood
- Beltway Poetry Quarterly Sarah Vaughn, Where are You, Unbuttoned Blues (PRIZE WINNER)
- Oyster River. Practice Makes Perfect, Communion
- Pilgrimage Press. The First Year Without You
- Ocotillo Review. After the Crash, Praisley,Riding Home
- Great Weather for Media. Love is Ever and Never a Knot
- Poetry Leaves. Song of the Alley Cat
- American Journal of Poetry. High Noon is Here, After the Crash
- Really System. See Saw Marjorie Daw
- Minnie's Diary (Inaugural ed) Naming Mother Bi-Polar (Nominated for Pushcart, Drowning Double, That's How the Story Goes
- Red Queen Lit Magazine. Cairn Honoring Pan Am 103
- Whispers My Love Doesn't Deserve Black
- Unlikely Stories. See Saw Marjorie Daw, Gong Show
- Inquietludeslitjournal. Driving Through Healdsburg, Panhandling
- Outlook. The Muse Slips into a Vat of Wine
- Comstock Review. This is the Story as I tell it
- Duck Lake Books. A Small Eden, Stare into the Gene Pool, Cadence
- Poetry Barn./Poets Distillery Pilgrim, One Room School House, Still flying over Lockerbie, (Chosen Best of Net, Pulitzer Prize nominee) , Whiteout
- West Coast Anthology. Red Skies at Night
- AMOYT (A Moment of Your Time) Apurksody
- The Ekphrastic Review. Apocalypse Now
- Existere Journal of Arts and Lit Morning Glories
- Songs of Eretz. Circle Faster, Circle Fainter, Oh Earth, Duet in Circles, Love the Sweet Sugar Satchmo, Epithalamion of Never
- Abyss and Apex. The Wound Beautiful
- Persimmon Tree. Insurrection
- Poets Choice Your Last Phone Call
- Oye Drum. DawnDusk
- Quartet Pain Like a Raven, Raven
- CWC Anthology. Dark Star
- The McNeece Review, Spectacles
- Quarencia. Raven, Mother's Silk Dress
- Blue Mountain Review. Ghazal
- Spirit Fire, Accolades, Conversation between Thief and Jewelry
- Valley Voices. Mother's Silk Dress
- Nixes Mate Review. novena
- House of Lobster Anthology Gypsy rose Lee Never Had a Mustache, Singing Villanelle to Icon #8
- Inflectionist Review. As if the World we Made of Hunger, Lake George Reflection
- Noyo Review. Melancholy, The Queen's Executioner, Naamah
- Poetry Quarterly. Death Splits the Air
- WMC Anthology. Hoffbrau House, Crossing Borders
- Poetic Sun. Thin Crop
- Into the Void. I Moved Out
- The Black Lion Journal. Caesura
- The Wire's Dream. Diagnosis Alzheimers
- Fort Bragg Murals Sisu, Song of the Suomalainen
- Kitchen Table Quarterly The Cairn (Chosen for Best of Net)
- Redwood Writers Unexpected Spring, The House up Little Lake Road, Solstice, Prayers in the Shape of Wind
- Thimble Magazine: Used to Be, Dies
A Concerto for an Empty Frame is out!
My third book (full length) A Concerto for an Empty Frame was released in October 2023 by Kelsey Books. The book is written in the shape of a concerto in three movements, one for each area of my life. Each poem is preceded by an Italian musical term, and the concerto is held together by several different motifs. Order through Amazon, Kelsey Books (Kelsayblooks.com) Barnes and Noble or directly from the poet: evrenios1@gmail.com.
Blurbs for A Concerto for an Empty Frame
This is a rare creation of song and scar, of vulnerability and both emotional and structural complexity. In Elizabeth Vrenios’ new collection Concerto in the Shape of an Empty Frame, the outer and inner, conceptual and human worlds mingle in accessible yet complex ways. Brimming with meditations on family, biology, mathematics, landscape, and personal identity, all woven through the language of classical music, these vibrant poems remain grounded in a universal familiarity that opens us up to something greater. If one of the aims of poetry is to condense our vast, contradictory, and beautifully human world into the briefest of songs, Concerto in the Shape of an Empty Frame stands as a testament to its possibility.
— John Sibley Williams
I had the privilege of being present during the birth of Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’ brilliant new book of poems, Concerto for an Empty Frame. And what a magical birth! Once Elizabeth alighted on the idea to meld these gorgeous poems into a concerto (using her considerable musical prowess), she was a woman on fire—a maestro at work. You can feel her passion singing through each movement of what is, after all, a heroine’s journey. A modern quest we embark on in, what else, a white Valiant after the opera. With poems Con fuoco, Furioso, and Lacrimoso, Ms. Vrenios deftly guides us through the initiation stage of this epic, to our heroine’s darkest nights of the soul—the shock and grief of a son lost to the tragic bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. And ultimately, to our heroine’s nostos, homecoming. I emerged, blinking at the return of light, and forever changed. Avanti! Avanti!
—Kim Noriega, author of Name Me
Reading Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’s new poetry collection is like listening to a powerful concerto by Mozart or Beethoven. Concerto for an Empty Frame is presented in the form of a musical score, complete with Italian notation. Even her definitions are poems, such as these lines from her definition of “concerto:”
1. “Mus: A piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.
2. One thousand yellow finches lift off a late summer river all at once.”
The three movement of her concerto lead us through the breakup of her marriage, the loss of her son in a terrorist bombing, and finally a stepping away from grief, as “Blue startles the air open like an egg.” Concerto for an Empty Frame is a brilliant work by a gifted musician.
Maureen Eppstein. Author of Horizon Line
Titan Book Review: https://wp.me/p3cyvH-sh1
Testimonials
Praise for Empty the Ocean with a Thimble
In Empty the Ocean with a Thimble, Elizabeth Vrenios takes us on a journey through her Finnish-American childhood, a time of delight as well as of darkness. The poems that chronicle her youthful experiences—learning to ride a bike, going to the movies, practicing the piano—turn ominous, overshadowed by a mother who can’t express love or understand her “outlander” daughter’s needs. “I wear you like a cheerless jacket,” Vrenios says. But it is a jacket she manages, through her writing, to cast off, emerging as a poet of great spirit, heart, and determination—what the Finns call sisu.
—Sue Ellen Thompson, Poet and Winner of the Maryland Author Award
Praise for Special Delivery
The book is, of course, given the primary subject, a collection of very emotionally stirring set of poems. However, the impact of poems comes not solely from your son's death and your loss, but from the artistry you bring to the craft. Among the many lines I loved were "as I watch it inch/across the rumpled bed/slicing shadowed patterns/like a keen-edged stare./ I am still reluctant/to rouse." And "I hold the opaque skin to the light,/ striated, papery, colorless,/ an ephemeral wing of a ghost." These, for me, are examples of how your art helps convey so vividly and honestly the horrific event and its impact, but also provides a considerable degree of universality that a reader can feel and apply in myriad ways to her or his losses.
_ Gerald Cole
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’ A Concerto for an Empty Frame is a mesmerizing collection of poetry that explores loss, grief, and survival through an intricately structured lyrical journey. The haunting title alone beckons readers into a world where language and emotion intertwine, offering both aesthetic pleasure and deep introspection. Comprising 34 poems, the collection is artfully organized in the form of a concerto, divided into three movements and a cadenza. The first movement begins with the blooming of love and the tentative steps of a new relationship. It delicately portrays the adjustments and joys of coming together, only to shift dramatically into the dissonance of loss, most notably with the strikingly evocative ‘Out of Tune,’ where a “field laid bare to scavenging crows” paints a vivid image of grief and devastation. This tragic arc escalates with the heart-wrenching loss of a beloved life in a sudden, tragic accident.
Kirkpatrick-Vrenios deftly manipulates language, structure, and form, creating a symphony of words that both captivates and resonates long after reading. Poems such as ‘Yesterday’s Sand’ and ‘The Rag Lady Casts a Spell (Cadenza)’ stand out for their inventive forms, each one crafted with care to engage both the visual and auditory senses. The inclusion of Italian musical notations throughout the collection enhances its auditory richness, as if the poems themselves were notes on a score, meant to be heard as well as read. One of the most striking elements is the way silence and absence are rendered palpable through subtle details, such as the grey font in pieces like ‘Unbuttoned Blues,’ ‘I Moved Out,’ and ‘Blue Tarp.’ These unspoken moments deepen the emotional impact, allowing the unsaid to linger in the mind. Moreover, the use of dictionary definitions for musical terms like concerto and recapitulation lends a delicate, intellectual layer to the collection, intertwining poetic musings with technical precision. The title itself, A Concerto for an Empty Frame, alongside its subtitle Music for Survival, encapsulates the dual themes of loss and the possibility of renewal. The “empty frame” suggests both a life shattered by tragedy and a space waiting to be filled once more, while the music serves as a vehicle for endurance, echoing the human capacity to heal and continue.
This is a collection to be savored. Its emotional depth and linguistic craftsmanship invite readers to immerse themselves fully in a single sitting, then return to explore its nuanced layers of meaning and form. A Concerto for an Empty Frame is a moving and skillfully composed work that will linger in both the heart and mind.
– Titan Book review
Poetry
The Raven Will Leave on That Last Note
while listening to Water Boy by Don Shirley
“Water boy, where are you hiding?”
my heart a raven an upside-down kite
on the Pacific headlands
cries on the wind
soars on mournful notes
carried to the peak of a phrase
only to that moves to the next and the next
climbs to the peak of the wave
ripples the keyboard
my son’s wings whipped by the wind,
flutter fail
O water boy where are you hiding?
yellow poppies unwrap their skirts
to a fat bumblebee a cello
defies gravity drunkenly loops
from one golden cup to another
each note not like any other
this moment will never
come again
O glorious water boy!
I am walking in love and death
a familiar melody a worn rut
that leads to the ocean
Solstice
Your voice is sand scattered in the wind Louise Glück
Even now the earth is shifting
The hills darken. The sunflowers
dream in their black yokes.
How many winters have we seen this?
Magi travel toward the world's end,
their gold engraved on the desert—
now the perfect shore.
Now the time for the distant star—
the singing sands.
We cover our mirrors, stop our clocks,
bow our heads—
now the time for travel.
Over the desert we bear
our treasures, following the wheedling song
Come Child,
Come Bright One,
Leave your gold at the door.
The accustomed door where it always was.
It is time.
There inside, the song, the fire.
Sealed Casket
Some caskets were picked up by relatives in areas of airports normally reserved for livestock, those bodies difficult to identify, in sealed caskets.
Pan Am 103 bombed over Lockerbie, ,Scotland
i stand tall and stare at the wood grain. rub the dark veins that once carried the light of the living tree. and what if i spoke about despair? the way it grabs us. the rush of it through the canyon carving its own path. the fine echo of our songs. ring and ring back. back and ring back the canyon giving up its silence... loud. in the now dark and who hasn't stood in the dark holding nothing but dark. and handfuls of dark air. fingers tight. hold on to a vein of light and the way the december moon can seduce you to the window where you will stare at her pale light so faint that the photo of your son outlining the faint light is now only an echo. cannot be back or back seen in the dark. the sound of his voice. no. not. even as an echo. no echo. though the canyon of dark still flows over you, the lid sealed tight. you no longer can enter. it's in those moments with no faint light that you can't deny it. the loss. the dark grain of wood. one more sight. the need for a finger. hand. lock of hair. or a glimpse of that fine grain of his arm. that damned fine grain.
Dark Star
We considered our star, but never disaster,
the sputter and fizz of joy singular.
What did it matter what might not come after
the sauerkraut whine of a nuclear blaster
the space the tooth left, the kiss au revoir.
We considered our star, considered disaster
that tore open love's cloaks and left them in tatters.
Keen bumblebee's sting, and wasp's repertoire
taught that it mattered what chatter came after.
Like the blindfold eye, the black-cloth shatter,
the tick's Lyme prick, the fall's chilly gnarr
we learned our star was a carnival disaster,
as our inkling's nod faded faster
than the gas tank's last gasp, or unstrung guitar.
Nothing's the same
after the trusted, rusted ball-peen hammer
has shattered and scattered our befuddled memoir.
We consider our star, now hissing disaster,
and yes! Oh yes, nothing comes after.