petalridge.com
the website of
Derek Kannemeyer
Light verse & animal trivia, December 2022, ISBN-13: 979-8367906226
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Photography/Nonfiction, July & September 2021, ISBN-13: 978-1006490187
“A powerful photographic testament to a series of inspiring protests… Across eight chronological chapters, anchored with expansive notes throughout, Kannemeyer presents an astounding photographic catalog of changes… A stirring record of anti-racism in a Southern city. —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Silver Medal Winner, IPPY Awards, Best Non-Fiction Book, Mid-Atlantic Region.
Honored with a full scale photography exhibition at the Black History
Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, September-December 2021.
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Listed by Kirkus Reviews as one of the 100 Best Indie Books of 2022.
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The hardback is available only from me or from Amazon; the $7.99 PDF, which can
be read as an e-book, is available only from the printer, blurb.com.
Poetry, fall 2021/spring 2022, ISBN-13: 978-1734602494
For publisher information for these five works and for my other book-length projects, including Stalking Crawlrollies, The Play of Gilgamesh, The Flap Over Tree Debris Island, An Alphabestiary, and the Blue Nib Chapbook, please click on the PUBLICATIONS tab.
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About the Site Name
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"Petal Ridge" (in my fanciful conceit) describes the array of P-topics across my menu bar. It was originally a name I came up with in 2017, for a pickerel weed and lotus plant patch in Forest Hill Park where the lake insects like to perch. I'd just begun taking photographs. I coined it for a hybrid prose poem/photography sequence called "Zoom Lens." (You can read a few sections of "Zoom Lens" in the PIC LIT section, under the POTPOURRI tab.) The banner image at the top of the portal page dates from the same year, in our garden. There's a Pic Lit sonnet that goes with it. (You can find it under POTPOURRI, at the PORTRAITS subheading.)
PLACES TO GO, PATHS TO PERUSE: site navigation tips
This is a multi-purpose site.
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I am (for instance) a poet, a photographer, a playwright, a performer, and a puzzle master.
There are arts I practice seriously, and there are pursuits at which I play. Honestly, though,
I see all of what I do in the arts as parts of the same larger avocation; and the parts overlap.
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(1) At tabs such as POETRY, PAPERBACK WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHY, and PLAYHOUSE, I promote
and publicize my PROFESSIONAL work. I hope that that's not all those areas are good for. They're
also, like the rest of the site, meant as browsing rooms. It's just that their focus is narrower.
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(2) Every top tab other than those four has a dropdown menu. POTPOURRI breaks into six
subcategories, PLAYPEN into four, PAST GLORIES into three. (Please, please, explore
them for yourself!) These dropdown subcategories (which aren't closely related) may prove,
when you click on them, to branch off still further, into maybe-related subcategories.
(3) Even this PORTAL PAGE has such a dropdown. PAGES is the site conents page. PERSONAL
gets personl. PING ME is my "contact me" page.
(4) Some of the dropdown categories are tightly focused. "Puzzle Palace" (a PLAYPEN
dropdown) focuses on word square puzzles—go ✓ it out! "Song Lyrics" is a sub-subcategory
(a PLAYPEN to "Projects" dropdown). Some aren't ("Projects," "Pack Rat," etc.) The site,
let's be honest, is a ramshackle mansion, and permanently under construction as I live in it.
(5) As in any good ramshackle mansion, there are passageways between sections; themes and
topics overlap. For instance: "Party Pieces" focuses on my light verse, but other light verse work
is at "Pic Lit" or "Performance" or "POETRY." The "China '92" project is mostly under "Peripatetics"
(travel writing), but there's a gallery in "PHOTOGRAPHY" and poem/photo pairs in "Pic Lit." If
you're looking for my song lyrics in French, drop down from PAST GLORIES to "Parlez-vous."
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(6) The PUBLICATIONS and PNEWS tabs, like this PORTAL, are for Practical Matters. At the first
I list (with publication details) my available books. In PNEWS I sporadically announce what's
going on in my professional world: publications, press, planned appearances, and so on. As the
pnews becomes old news, I delete some items, and archive others: drop down to "pnews crevés."
(This is a bilingual pun. I like puns. "Puns" should be a subcategory.) That's it. Now go navigate.
Artist Profile
Derek's short form writing has appeared in scores of publications from Fiction International to Rolling Stone. He was a career teacher of French, English, and Creative Writing, and over the decades he also worked professionally in theater, principally as an actor.
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After retiring from teaching he began to publish longer form works, in some of which he incorporates visual art, most notably reflecting his recent interest in photography. For much more about his poetry and his picture-taking, his plays, his prose writings, and his passion projects, please hit the relevant tabs.​
