Poet, Leader,
Advocate
Discover the power of words. Jeanie Thompson’s new works and collaborations reflect a lifelong belief in poetry’s ability to heal, connect, and transform lives—while inspiring young people and communities to discover the power of their own voices.
About Jeanie Thompson
Jeanie Thompson is the author of The Myth of Water: Poems from the Life of Helen Keller, The Seasons Bear Us, White for Harvest: New and Selected Poems, Witness, Litany for a Vanishing Landscape, How to Enter the River, and Lotus and Psalm. Her poems have been published widely in journals and anthologies for many years, including in Whatever Remembers Us, High Horse, Working the Dirt, The Best of Crazyhorse, and recently The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume X: Alabama from Texas Review Press.
In 1993 Jeanie founded the Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The Forum promotes writers and writing and is a strong supporter of literary arts education. Its award-winning Writing Our Stories program for juvenile offenders takes place on three Department of Youth Services campuses.
Featured Collaboration
The Myth of Water: Go Into Your Life
Poems by Jeanie Thompson & Music by Larry Mitchell
Eight poems recast into songs that tell the story of renown author and activist Helen Keller’s life within the Alabama landscape. Love, loss and longing are Helen’s themes.
“These poems will break your heart, then mend it and return it to you enlarged.” – Sena Jeter Naslund, New York Times best-selling novelist
Words & Music CD Launch Event Video
Larry Mitchell
Grammy-winning producer/engineer and composer
His original compositions on guitar, bass, drums, keys, and various instruments reflect the poet’s sense of pain and loss in a familiar landscape. Mitchell has produced and performed with Native American musicians and three-time US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and has toured with Tracy Chapman, Billy Squire and Ric Ocasek of the Cars. Learn more at LarryMitchell.com and on Facebook.
Selected Works
My Gaia
Poems and photographs, with Wayne Sides (7 Points Press, 2025).
The Myth of Water CD
Poems by Jeanie Thompson & Music by Larry Mitchell. CD and Booklet. 2025.
Sale Price! $20 (includes shipping).
The Myth of Water
Poems from the Life of Helen Keller. (The University of Alabama Press, 2016). In Print.
The Seasons Bear Us
Poems (River City Publishing, 2009).
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