Publication Date: May 19, 2026
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-36-9
Judith Kerman returns with her twelfth collection of poetry, A Hard Frost, in which she confronts aging and disability with honesty, wit, and an undiminished creative force. Written from the lived experience of becoming moderately disabled later in life, the poems examine the physical limitations of an aging body while refusing narratives of decline. What emerges is resilience, humor, and a fierce attentiveness to the world.
With an imagistic and naturalistic voice, Kerman explores her developing relationship with the natural world—its beauty, its menace, and its capacity to ground a life under strain. A quiet, unconventional mysticism runs through the collection, in poems where perception, science, music, and history interact.
A Hard Frost affirms the emotional and imaginative vitality of old age, offering poems shaped by perspective, irony, and hard-won insight—and demonstrates that older women shouldn’t be underestimated or overlooked.
About the Author
Judith Kerman is a poet and multi-artist (singer, performer, and crafter). She has published eleven previous books and chapbooks of poetry along with three books of translations. She founded Earth’s Daughters magazine in 1971 and Mayapple Press in 1978, which she continues to run today. For more than 25 years, she has coordinated annual writers’ retreats and online workshops. Kerman earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Buffalo.
Publication Date: May 19, 2026
Paperback, 94 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-36-9
Judith Kerman returns with her twelfth collection of poetry, A Hard Frost, in which she confronts aging and disability with honesty, wit, and an undiminished creative force. Written from the lived experience of becoming moderately disabled later in life, the poems examine the physical limitations of an aging body while refusing narratives of decline. What emerges is resilience, humor, and a fierce attentiveness to the world.
With an imagistic and naturalistic voice, Kerman explores her developing relationship with the natural world—its beauty, its menace, and its capacity to ground a life under strain. A quiet, unconventional mysticism runs through the collection, in poems where perception, science, music, and history interact.
A Hard Frost affirms the emotional and imaginative vitality of old age, offering poems shaped by perspective, irony, and hard-won insight—and demonstrates that older women shouldn’t be underestimated or overlooked.
About the Author
Judith Kerman is a poet and multi-artist (singer, performer, and crafter). She has published eleven previous books and chapbooks of poetry along with three books of translations. She founded Earth’s Daughters magazine in 1971 and Mayapple Press in 1978, which she continues to run today. For more than 25 years, she has coordinated annual writers’ retreats and online workshops. Kerman earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Buffalo.
