Kelly Sargent

Background Information

A hearing impaired author and artist adopted in Luxembourg, Kelly Sargent has written for SIGNews, a newspaper for the Deaf community, and worked with deaf students in education. She currently serves as Creative Nonfiction Editor of The Bookends Review and on the Editorial Board of Beyond Words. She is the author of an award-nominated memoir in verse entitled Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion (Kelsay Books, 2022), in which she reflects on her experiences growing up with her deaf twin sister in Europe and the United States. 

Links to several book reviews appear on her book page at Kelsay Books: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/seeing-...

Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion can also be found at RIT in Rochester, New York in the poetry section of the university’s library.

A second memoir in verse entitled Echoes in My Eyes (Kelsay Books) was released in March 2024.

She is also the author of a collection of modern haiku and senryu poems entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023). Short form poetry honors include: The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Award for Individual Poems 2022 and 2023 (Nominations); The H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryu Contest 2023 (Honorable Mention); Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Competition 2023 (Honorable Mention); Golden Haiku Poetry Contest 2022 and 2024 (Recognition); The Heron’s Nest Readers' Choice Awards 2022 (Special Mention); The Mukai Haiku Festival Poetry Competition 2023 (Winner, Nature category); and The Haiku Calendar Competition 2024 (Runner-up).

Her Poet Profile at The Haiku Foundation appears at:
https://thehaikufoundation.org/poet-deta...

Other cover art and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in more than eighty literary publications in the United States and abroad, most recently including Rattle, Chestnut Review, and Broad River Review. Honors include: The Ron Rash Award in Poetry 2023 (Finalist); Eric Hoffer Award 2022 (Nomination); and Best of the Net 2021 and 2023 (Nominations).

She is also the author of a children’s storybook entitled Sundae Sundays, Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award (Children’s Inspirational).