The Empress of Kisses

The Empress of Kisses explores the landscape of the human heart through free and formal verse. The poems chronicle a wide variety of relationships past and present, real and imagined, with family, friends, lovers, pop culture icons, mythological figures, historical events, and with words themselves. The collection features a special focus on the experiences of Generation X, the "forgotten generation."
"This book offers all the pleasures that poetry affords--sonic felicities, skilled wordplay, resonant insights, and unexpected destinations. This is a delightful and memorable book."--Beth Ann Fennelly, final judge, author of Unmentionables

November 9th, 1989

For thirty years there is no kiss.
Then there is the possibility of a kiss,
like a rumble or a half-heard shout--
did it come from this side
or that side? When the kiss
breaks through, we all struggle
to register the impossible,
how the wall came down,
how their lips found each other,
every obstacle reduced to rubble
around their feet, the bright paint
of her lipstick smeared,
unintelligible graffiti all over
the changed angles of his face.

GWEN HART teaches writing at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Hollins University, an M.F.A. from Minnesota State University, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. She is the author of several chapbooks and the poetry collection Lost and Found (David Robert Books). She is a Generation Xer and a regular contributer to the Popular Culture Association Conference.