Ken Pomeroy will break your heart. Sheâll do it with a single lineâsometimes, just one word. The pain begins as an empathetic ache. Then, as Pomeroy sings her stories, you begin to see yourself in her hurt and hope. And you realize: Weâre in this together.
Â
Pomeroyâs outstretched hand to the wounded manifests as startlingly good songs. Her soprano is comfortingââalmost sweetââbut perhaps most powerful delivering a devastating line. A deft guitarist, she opts for beds of rootsy strings that can soothe or haunt. But itâs her writing that really shines and stings. âWriting was and is the only way I can fully express an emotion and feel like I got it out,â she says. âI feel like once I get it out into a song, I donât have to worry about it anymore. If itâs a traumatic thing that happened, I kind of act as if itâs gone.â
Â
Pomeroy creates a wild but safe space of her ownââa space that, like 22-year-old Pomeroy herself, is brutally honest, proudly Native American, and undeniably brilliant.