Poet Profile

Kath Abela Wilson

Kath Abela Wilson honors her mother's Maltese family name Abela with all her publications. Her father, Erwin Endress was a poet and journalist who read her Great Poems of the English Language as bedtime stories from early childhood. She wrote her first poem at age six and has never stopped writing poems. She lives with her husband Rick Wilson, now professor emeritus of mathematics at Caltech, and a collector and player of historical and world flutes and performs her poetry with his accompaniment at home in Southern California and abroad. They travel to world gatherings for mathematics, music, poetry, and cultural community ideals. They maintain residences in Pasadena and Santa Barbara, California, mostly inhabiting the Caltech Campus and environs. She was born on an island borough of New York City raised her two children while she studied for ten years and graduated with a degree in English Literature and Philosophy. She spent many years independently and successfully supporting her family as a research assistant, writer, journalist, and handmade jewelry artist in Santa Barbara.
Being a born poet, the stream of her poetry and artistic work has been a primary uninterrupted adventure. However it was not possible to think of publishing. Thanks to her marriage to Rick Wilson in 2001, after the death of her previous husband to melanoma, and after setting up their life together it wasn't until 2008 that she began sharing her work in journals. Asian poetry was a great influence on her work in free verse short poems since childhood. She created and leads Poets on Site, a poetry writing and performance group inspired by life, the arts and nature. They often perform on site of their inspiration accompanied by Rick Wilson on flutes. They host three poets meetings a week, writing sessions commentary and special guests at their home and Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden. She is Poetry Editor at Colorado Boulevard.net, an environmental online newsmagazine, host of a Weekly Poets Salon publishing international short form poets. Secretary of the Tanka Society of America. Honored as one of 50 Fabulous Women in Pasadena by THE Magazine, 2013 at the Pasadena Museum of History.

Awards and Other Honors:

2nd place in the First Morioka International Haiku Contest 2019; 3rd place 2018 Santoka 1st International Haiku Contest on Peace; 1st Place, Dwarf Star award, Science Fiction Poetry Association 2018; 3rd Prize 23rd Kusamakura International Haiku Competition, 2018; Pushcart Prize Nominee, 2018; 1st place in the Fujisan International Tanka Contest, Tokyo, Japan 2017; Embassy of Japan In Lithuania, winning haiku 2012-13; Honorable Mention 2017, British Haiku Society Awards; Lyrical Passion 2017 World Tanka Contest; Honorable Mention Tokutomi Haiku Contest, 2017; Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational Sakura Award 2017, honorable mentions 2013, 2010.

Books Published:

Figures of Humor and Strange Beauty, 2019, Glass Lyre Press, Quitab editions, Chicago, 2019; Driftwood Monster, Haiku For Troubled Times, 2017, Locofo Chaps, Mora Press, Chicago 2017; The Owl Still Asking, Tanka For Troubled Times, Locofo Chaps, Mora Press, Chicago 2017. She was Included in Two Autumns Press anthologies for 2015 but for their voices and Rensaku Printemps a Cappella (four poets anthology) 2014, Luce Pelletier.
Kath Abela has edited and produced over 25 books for Poets on Site Press. Most recently Stone Lantern, A Walk in the Storrier Stearns Garden, 2018, Pasadena. Others honor exhibits at Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, On Awakening, The Art of Susan Dobay, 2012 and Reason and Mystery, celebrating the work of Rick Wilson, The WilsonFest, 2012 at Caltech. Other topics include Manzanar, Japanese Internment camp, and many cultural and scientific themes uniting all cultures. Most of these books have been performed live on location in galleries gardens and on the Caltech campus.

as if it matters
a heron tiptoes
across the border

globe streetlamps
only one of them
is the moon

wild artichoke the whole world dipped in butter

night owl
knowing every question
has a question

cherry stones
the crunch of a deer
biting through

shaken lotus pod
after a troubled winter
this soft rattle

Credits:

“as if it matters” - 3rd Prize - 23rd Kusamakura International Haiku Competition, 2018; “globe streetlamps“ - Akitsu Quarterly, Spring 2018; “wild artichoke“ - The Heron’s Nest Vol. XVII, No. 2, June 2015; “night owl” - Frogpond, Vol. 41.1, Winter 2018; “cherry stones“ - Modern Haiku Vol. 50:2, Summer 2019; “shaken lotus pod“ - Acorn Issue # 40, Spring 2018.