Learning to Weld
By Rina Terry
“welded one thing to another / as though I had a plan, an idea, a goal, / as though any of the pieces of my life // had connected in certain identifiable / completion.”
Rina Terry
Rina Terry’s career has ranged from Continuing Education Coordinator for healthcare professionals, to high school teacher, to Assistant to the Dean of General Studies at a state college, to adjunct instructor, to Poet-in-the-Schools for the NJ State Council on the Arts, to senior pastor of several churches, to Supervisor of Religious Services at a men’s state prison. Throughout, she has been a writer.
Terry has three grown children who have supported and encouraged her work, and a feline companion, Merlin. She has published poems, essays, book reviews, scholarly articles and a book of poetry related to her prison work entitled, Cardboard Piano. The influence of jazz on her writing is generally evident and her public readings are often accompanied by live jazz improvisation.
After spending the majority of her life in the southern New Jersey shore area, Terry now lives and writes in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.