petalridge.com
the website of
Derek Kannemeyer
PNEWS
Pnews, November 1, 2025
1. Richard Rose has launched a collaborative website, Unsettled-Things.com, to encourage the exchange of conversation about life concerns: a kind of open forum for congenial philosophizing. I have begun to contribute to that flow of ideas! See the Oct 29 blog entry at the PALAVER tab for more.
2. The manuscript I'm currently circulating is The Language of Belief. Although it also features a number of conventional verse pieces (mostly formal or semi-formal), most pof the work straddles the line between prose poetry and personal memoir, or prose poetry and meditative essay, or prose poetry and microfiction. It's going to be hard to place, which makes me especially grateful to the editors of Twin Flame Literary for featuring the title piece, a 3500 word personal essay in a dozen parts. Here's the link: https://twinflameliterary.com/contact/issue-iii/
3. Stalking Crawlrollies was one of the four finalists for the James River Writers Best Self-Published Novel Award. Which encourages me to think of ways to actually properly publish it—though it's so quixotically hybrid and quirky, I'm not sure how to go about it. The hope is to restructure it in time for the bicentennial of Lewis Carroll's death, in 2032. See the PAPERBACK WRITER tab for more about the project.
4. While my other writing in progress strikes me as even more quixotic (a long linked fiction/armchair theater anthology), I've been taking time out to add a POP SONGSTER tab to the site (under PLAYPEN) featuring a generous selection of my song lyrics since 1966. As (not on this website: just for my own pleasure) I go about recording these songs (alas, all a cappella) to add to my music library I keep tinkering with the texts. I'm periodically posting the revised versions to the site. (About 70 songs recorded so far, with about another 20 still to add.)
5. I'm excited about a California podcast reading coming up on election day, November 4, for Harry's Poetry Hour, sponsored by the Motion Picture and Television Fund. It's viewable live only by subscribers (retired film and TV professionals) but almost all the shows get posted to their YouTube channel. I'll let y'all know!
Pnews, July 2025
1. Thanks to all who attended the VIRGINIA VOICES persona poems workshop. Looking forward to the open mike on July 23. Register for the Zoom link here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/cWa7yXWOSmedpmzfu1KdVw
and sign up on the spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fTEygbaeKkd-03BGd22o426KfCVWdLGh/edit?gid=35137179#gid=35137179
2. BOOK SIGNING & READING & GENERAL POETRY PARTY, at Book People, on July 15, 2025
Time: Tuesday, JULY 15, 2025, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Place: Book People, 10464 Ridgefield Parkway, Gleneagle Shopping Center, Henrico, VA 23223
Pnews, May 2025
1. Scattershots, my lighter verse collection (Cyberwit, April 2025), is now available. For details, see under PUBLICATIONS; for samples, check the POETRY tab.
​
2. Many thanks to Iris Art Studio in Poquoson for inviting me back for another solo reading! May 17, 2025, from 1-3. 501 Wythe Creek Rd #100, Poquoson, VA 23662.
​
3. Thanks to all who joined me on Facebook at the PSV Poem Sharing site this April. In honor of National Poetry Month, we once again took on the task of drafting new poems daily. (All of mine are still in pretty rough shape, but there are a number I’m expecting to profitably revisit!)
​
4. The annual awards ceremony for the PSV poetry contests is coming up on Sunday, June 1st, at the downtown Richmond Library, from 1-4 pm. I’ll be there!
​
5. Virginia Voices is hosting a couple of podcasts devoted to persona poems. On June 18, I’ll be leading a generative workshop. On July 23, there’ll be an open mic.
\
6. I had a poem in the April edition of Verse-Virtual. Here’s a link: https://www.verse-virtual.org/2025/April/kannemeyer-derek-2025-april.html
Pnews, March, 2025
1. My new chapbook of monologues and tales, FOUND VOICES, was published on February 8 by Clare Songbirds. It's available from all the usual retailers, but why not order directly from the publisher? Just $9.99! Here's the link to the author page: https://www.claresongbirdspub.com/featured-authors/derek-kannemeyer/
2. I've been writing up a storm, and have just begun circulating a new full-length poetry MS called The Language of Belief. A lighter verse collection called Scattershots has also just been taken by Cyberwit. Due out in April!
3. I was a featured reader on the Virginia Voices podcast on March 12. Thanks to the co-hosts, Steve Bucher and Cathy Hailey, and to Terry Cox-Joseph, who shared the hour with me. Here's a link to the hour-long event: https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/play/pqia2Vqu8y_s6w0HyKwxVcfCl8Kto6QMPtZNHyx9vKwNzQplYGtLFU4Wi0x-e_d2beT4DoZgxsc4Inms.kEG0jRQsbtJYaia6?accessLevel=meeting&canPlayFromShare=true&from=share_recording_detail&continueMode=true&componentName=rec-play&originRequestUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fus06web.zoom.us%2Frec%2Fshare%2FLTnipeELUR2Uz9_sLWRc9jltPhjcfMW4AxQu0nxZya2Tv9X_sR9vMjY47MKdH7kG.CtYpe7JK_lN_5c8b
4. A long video interview recorded in February or March of 2024 has just surfaced. I'll add a link at thePraise & Press tab. (Drop down at PUBLICATIONS.)
Pnews, December 2024
1. I have two poems in the December Verse-Virtual. https://www.verse-virtual.org/2024/December/kannemeyer-derek-2024-december.html
​
2. I have two pieces in a new anthology: 42 Stories Anthology Presents: Book of 42² (edited by B.A. Mullin). It features 1,764 micro stories of exactly 42 words, circulated through 42 genres. Each has a 42 character title (including spaces), and each author bio is also 42 words long. Too quirky to resist, right? Look for it on Amazon!
A NOTE: PNEWS predating the current year or so, originating from after the creation of this website in the fall of 2021, is eventually moved to PNEWS CREVÉS. (Check it out at the PNEWS dropdown menu up top!) But for visual interest, and nostalgia's sake, plus a certain pinch of je ne sais pourquoi pas packrattitude, permit me to preserve a few past media pieces on the present page, as palimpsest.
​​
​​
UNSAY THEIR NAMES (2021)
Unsay Their Names is a record, in photographs accompanied by commentary, of the 2020-21 statue removals in Richmond, VA, and of a city's transformation in the context of the BLM protests. It is also an exploration, in commentary accompanied by photographs, of what brought us, locally and historically, to this summer of reckoning. And it becomes a voyage of personal discovery, as I compare the impact of Confederate and Lost Cause history on race relations in Virginia with my own struggles (as a mixed race immigrant) for racial peace and justice.
· ISBN-10 : 1006490183
· ISBN-13 : 978-1006490187
For sample photographs, visit the PHOTOGRAPHY pages.
Available now on Amazon. For more, see the DISTRIBUTION folder below.
.jpg)
%20copy-Edit-2-2.jpg)