Janet Sylvester, author of And Not to Break

“Don't look away.  The poems of You Are Ruining My Loneliness are love letters, queries, elegies, and excitements that address the elemental and hard art of living.  “It’s all source material,” the speaker says. From the undersea, to the river’s mouth, from the family to the planets, from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen table, Kate Kearns, with an unbeliever’s gratitude, instructs us toward belief.  In these poems, ‘the underworld is alive/ and rowdy with messages.’  You’ll want to read these poems over and again for the truth of their surprises.”

Linda Aldrich, former poet laureate of Portland and author of Ballast

“You Are Ruining My Loneliness is a beautiful lyrical collection that moves with agile intelligence through poems that stand out for their imagery, apt figurative language, and varied poetic forms… What comes from such close attention to the world within and without is an intricate and musical series of poems that explore the line between human mortality and ideas of immortality as revealed by the natural world and the universe. Kate Kearns is unafraid to ask the larger questions about who we are and how to find our way forward in a world of loss. She reminds us of our innate interconnectedness and does what we want a good poet to do: transport us into a way of seeing things afresh through rich language, practiced skill, and above all, a deep and compassionate heart.”