Philip Kenney in Conversation with John Brehm

We are thrilled to host Phil Kenney with his new book  Only This Step, a book of Haiku published by Finishing Line Press. Phil will be in conversation with local poet, essayist, and teacher John Brehm.  With subtlety and directness the haiku in this collection illuminate again and again the astonishing realities of the world and consciousness itself. Whether in the yearning of a windchime, or the hunger to realize the patience of a tree, readers of Only This Step will find that these poems open the mind to new ways of seeing and experiencing.

Author Lucy Adkins says of his book, "The best poetry helps us get close to something fundamental, something true, something that we feel in our bones, but can't quite formulate into words. Then you read the poem and say 'Yes! That's it. That's how I feel!' The haiku in Phil Kenney's Only This Step do just that."

Kenney is a practicing psychotherapist in Portland. He did his post-graduate work in British Object Relations at the Washington D.C. School of Psychiatry and has taught Self Psychology as part of his private practice. A long time meditator and poet, Kenney is the author of the novel Radiance and a collection of poetry, Where Roses Bloom. He strives to bring together the worlds of psychology, creativity and spirituality in his work and is the author of a book on those subjects entitled, The Writer's Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, a book intended to support writers with the emotional vulnerabilities they face living a creative life.

Because of our small space, we ask that audience members wear masks during events. Thank you.