CAROL BARRETT

Carol Barrett holds doctorates in both clinical psychology and creative writing.  She coordinates the Creative Writing Certificate Program at Union Institute & University, and also teaches in the Creativity Studies Program at Saybrook University.  Her books include Calling in the Bones, which won the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, Drawing Lessons from Finishing Line Press, and Pansies from Sonder Press, a finalist for the 2020 Oregon Book Award in General Nonfiction, and the first book in English about the Apostolic Lutheran community.  Her creative work has appeared in JAMA, Poetry International, Poetry Northwest, The Women’s Review of Books, The Christian Century, Christianity and Literature, and elsewhere.  A former NEA Fellow in Poetry, she lives in Bend, OR.

DRAWING A CHURCH

Work from the basement up.

Set the chairs and furnace high.

Roll white paper on folding 

tables, creasing the edge

with your thumb. Stack

blue-gray hymnals on a bench

and count the canes swinging.

Continue with casseroles.

At the last, render a thousand

unexpected guests. Only then

attempt the steeple.

Originally published in The Creative Woman.

Read more of Carol’s work in Solum Journal Volume I.