Luci Shaw once wrote that she liked the way Heather Cadenhead saw things—“not just with her eyes, but with all her senses focused.” A native Tennessean, Heather’s poems and essays are published or forthcoming in Inkwell, The Rabbit Room, St. Katherine Review, and other journals. Her poetry has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations as well as a New Plains Review Editorial Prize. Over on Substack, she publishes a monthly newsletter on caregiving and creativity called Firelight.
Tent Revival
My dad dreamed of a tent staked to the ground:
preachers at the pulpit like batters at the plate,
soles in the dirt, coaxing souls from the dirt.
My husband slept in a tent, his dreams
the drums of a Cherokee reservation,
his church pew the buffalo grass.
With bedsheets, I build a tent for my sons.
Flashlight like an acolyte’s flame,
I teach them only to kneel.
Copyright 2026 by Heather Cadenhead. All Rights Reserved.
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