Karla Brundage collects nearly twenty years of writing in Swallowing Watermelons, her first published collection.  She tracks her life experiences as a biracial young woman, a single mother, and an artist activist who has lived in Hawaii, New York City, and Zimbabwe, where she traveled on a Fulbright Teacher Exchange, and California, where she now resides.  Her poems reach to the bone and come from the heart.

“The poems in Swallowing Watermelons, Karla Brundage’s first volume of poetry, read like a series of creeks and rivers. Some poems trickle with tears, while others flow and warble over the rocks and silt of life. A few poems carry a waterfall’s warning echoes, but all are constantly in motion, moving the reader with their clarity and courage.”

-devorah major, San Francisco Poet Laureate

 

"In this first collection, Karla Brundage demonstrates her thematic range and reveals that she is not afraid to explore the gamut of emotional entanglement. The poems are honest, vulnerable, bold and triumphant."

-Opal Palmer Adisa, author of Eros Muse

 

“Karla Brundage's poetic voice is just what the world needs now. She writes truths too often silenced—truths familiar and truths unheard.  Lucky you if you are holding this volume. Open it and read on! It may be just what you need now.”  

-Ariel Gore, Editor Hip Mama Magazine