Kate Bush Inspired Lionhearts by Karyna McGlynn—National Poetry Month 2026

 

      Karyna McGlynn.

Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned an MFA at the University of Michigan and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston.  She is the author of three books of poetry— I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande, 2009), which won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize;  Hothouse (Sarabande, 2017); and 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse (Sarabande, 2022. She is also the author of three chapbooks— Scorpionica (2007), and The 9-Day Queen Gets Lost on Her Way to the Execution (2016). Her work has been featured in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading (2010).

McGlynn uses psychological ephemera, pop culture, and improvisational plots to investigate danger and human longing. “Part film noir, part horror flick, these innovative poems dwell in the cul-de-sac badlands where crimes and heinous misdeeds are recurring,” noted Karla Huston in Library Journal. In an interview for SHARKFORUM, McGlynn noted the importance of temporality to her work: “The past is always present in my writing. … We are not purely products of our own time—we are a decoupage of memories, both individual and shared.”

A member of five former National Poetry Slam teams, McGlynn served as the organizer of the Houston Indie Book Fest and as managing editor of Gulf Coast. She is also the Director of Creative Writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

What drew me to today’s selection, Lionhearts, is the shared experience of communal ecstasy inspired by a work of art.  In my case it was a gathering decades ago on a Chicago Easter Sunday during an epic ice storm.  We came together for a group reading from James Joyce’s Ulysses and were fueled not by box wine but by potent acid, pot, and shots of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.

McGlynn's inspiration--Lionhearts, an album by beloved and iconic English singer/songwriter Kate Bush.

Lionhearts

One very cold night in Ann Arbor

 I went to a party where “Kate Bush”

 was the password. I put on my Uggs

 & trudged through the slush.

 I climbed the fire escape to an attic apartment

 where five other writers & I

 sat around a Crosley turntable

 & a box of Bordeaux Blend

 & a stale bâtard with expensive butter

 & listened to Lionheart

 & talked about line breaks

 & grew increasingly drunk

 & complimentary & eager

 —for aesthetics’ sake—

 to investigate each other up close.

 Some of us kissed. Kate stalked us

 from the cover—crimped mane

 & lion-skin suit—as two people

 with silk scarves tied someone

 to the radiator & danced madly,

 leaping on chairs, licking paws!

 Leo rising, downward dog!

 Candles sputtering their last magic

 into the rafters as we sank straight

 through the secondhand loveseat:

 floral flickering, ticking undone.

 This is one of my fondest memories.

 The whole room a gold & rolling

 ship of girl flame! But there—

 in the dark, catholic corners

 where I can’t quite see—a stowaway

 sometimes darts. Imagine such a creature:

 subsisting all this time

 on the dusty crusts & vinegars

 of someone else’s slight

 & misplaced shame.

 

—Karyna Mc Glynn

 

Published in the October 2022 issue of Poetry magazine.

Lionhearts by Karyna McGlynn—National Poetry Month 2023

 

      Karyna McGlynn.

Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned an MFA at the University of Michigan and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston.  She is the author of three books of poetry— I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande, 2009), which won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize;  Hothouse (Sarabande, 2017); and 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse (Sarabande, 2022.  She is also the author of three chapbooks— Scorpionica (2007), and The 9-Day Queen Gets Lost on Her Way to the Execution (2016). Her work has been featured in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading (2010).

McGlynn uses psychological ephemera, pop culture, and improvisational plots to investigate danger and human longing. “Part film noir, part horror flick, these innovative poems dwell in the cul-de-sac badlands where crimes and heinous misdeeds are recurring,” noted Karla Huston in Library Journal. In an interview for SHARKFORUM, McGlynn noted the importance of temporality to her work: “The past is always present in my writing. … We are not purely products of our own time—we are a decoupage of memories, both individual and shared.”

A member of five former National Poetry Slam teams, McGlynn has served as the organizer of the Houston Indie Book Fest and as managing editor of Gulf Coast. She is also the Director of Creative Writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

What drew me to today’s selection, Lionhearts, is the shared experience of communal ecstasy inspired by a work of art.  In my case it was a gathering decades ago on a Chicago Easter Sunday during an epic ice storm.  We came together for a group reading from James Joyce’s Ulysses and were fueled not by box wine but by potent acid, pot, and shots of Jameson’s Irish whiskey.

McGlynn's inspiration--Lionhearts, an album by beloved and iconic English singer/songwriter Kate Bush.

Lionhearts

One very cold night in Ann Arbor

 I went to a party where “Kate Bush”

 was the password. I put on my Uggs

 & trudged through the slush.

 I climbed the fire escape to an attic apartment

 where five other writers & I

 sat around a Crosley turntable

 & a box of Bordeaux Blend

 & a stale bâtard with expensive butter

 & listened to Lionheart

 & talked about line breaks

 & grew increasingly drunk

 & complimentary & eager

 —for aesthetics’ sake—

 to investigate each other up close.

 Some of us kissed. Kate stalked us

 from the cover—crimped mane

 & lion-skin suit—as two people

 with silk scarves tied someone

 to the radiator & danced madly,

 leaping on chairs, licking paws!

 Leo rising, downward dog!

 Candles sputtering their last magic

 into the rafters as we sank straight

 through the secondhand loveseat:

 floral flickering, ticking undone.

 This is one of my fondest memories.

 The whole room a gold & rolling

 ship of girl flame! But there—

 in the dark, catholic corners

 where I can’t quite see—a stowaway

 sometimes darts. Imagine such a creature:

 subsisting all this time

 on the dusty crusts & vinegars

 of someone else’s slight

 & misplaced shame.

 

—Karyna Mc Glynn

 

Published in the October 2022 issue of Poetry magazine.

 

December Will Be Magic Again by Kate Bush—The Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2022-‘23

December Will be Magic Again form Kate Bush's 1979 British TV Christmas special.

It’s hard to believe that the Winter Holidays Music Festival has been running for years and we never before got around to Kate Bush, the revered British singer song writer, dancer, and producer.  Her unique four octave voice, brilliantly original lyrics, and performance style integrating her vocals, instrumental talents, and modern dance made her one of the biggest stars in the United Kingdom.  Far less known in America, she is something of cult favorite with indie musicians and art rock fans. 

                               Kate Bush as a young star.

Born as Catherine Bush on July 30, 1968 in Bexleyheath, Kent, in the greater London metropolitan area, she began writing original music at 11 years old and released her debut album, The Kick Inside at just 19 years old.  It included her first British #1 hit Wuthering Heights.  She released only 10 original albums through 2011, all but one of them ranking in the top five.  Sixteen of her singles were in the U.K. top twenty.

Dancing in an award winning video for Wuthering Heights.  Modern dance became integral to her live performances.

Bush only toured once for six weeks in Britain and Europe, in 1978, in an elaborate concert/performance art piece she wholly conceived.  It exhausted her and she could never be coaxed back out on the road again.  She appeared in sporadic television broadcasts, specials, and charity performances like Comic Aid.  After her first four albums there were long gaps between new recordings including four years between 1985 and ’89 and six years between 2005 and ’11.  She attributed the gaps to prioritizing her family and denied that her perfectionism was to blame.

She remains an intensely private person and has a reputation as something of a recluse.  None-the-less she has been showered with honors for her bold work including the Brit Award for Best Female artist, the Ivor Novello Awards, and has been nominated for the Billboard Music Awards, the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.   Rolling Stone ranked Hounds of Love #68 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and in 2021 Running Up That Hill was also listed at #60 in the magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. She is listed #46 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll. She was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honors for services to music.

Bush is enjoying new fame with the re-release of Running Up That Hill which was featured on the TV spook series Stranger Things.

Bush was discovered by a whole new generation, most of whom assumed she was a new artist when Running Up That Hill was featured in season 4 of the cable series Stranger Things this past May.  Re-released as a single it shot to #1 in Britain—a 43 year gap since her last chart topper—and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S.  The success has spurred revived interest in her body of work on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today we feature December Will Be Magic Again from her breakthrough year 1979 TV Christmas special.