POETRY FEATURED PROSE FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Ann E. Michael


Desist/Resist

Dying takes work.
Intricate systems
connect cells
within our selves,
networks large
and small, co-
ordinate the shut
down with
the message:
cease.
Heart responds
with clenched-fist
punch; the rest
follows the leader.
Often, there's
resistance—
life being rugged
and persistent.
Cells and synapses
take their time
to diminish,
working hard
against the finish.


Mockingbord Joust

April, the maples have begun to bud
and there on the larch's bare branches that bird
goes copying every riff he's ever heard,
trying to impress.

Chirping, lilting, trilling, at times two tones
at once, his small heart beating rapidly
under the dull white feathers and nobody
listens, I guess.

Maybe one human stops to spy him, gray
on gray limbs under gray sky, no one's praising
the thrill of his irruption, mash-up phrasing,
juiced clatter of his jazz.

We who bypass his flash of white, rasp and song,
think his kind common as paper coffee cups
beside the road. Who's bothered to look up?
Only his rival has.

































AUTHOR BIO

Ann E. Michael is the writing coordinator at DeSales University of Center Valley, PA, and the author of the poetry collection Water-Rites as well as four chapbooks. She's also a librettist, essayist, and long-time blogger (www.annemichael.wordpress.com). Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, 9th Letter, Natural Bridge, Painted Bride Quarterly, ISLE, and in many other journals, anthologies, podcasts, and websites.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Barbara Crooker
Alexandra Donovan
Jehanne Dubrow
Kathleen Goldbach
Colleen S. Harris
Brittany Hill
Katherine Hoerth
Lynne Knight
Jean L. Kreiling
Angie Macri
Carolyn Martin
Kathleen McClung (Featured Poet)
Mary Mercier
Ann Michael
Leslie Schultz
Myrna Stone
Jean Syed
Ann Christine Tabaka
Sally Thomas
Doris Watts
Joyce Wilson
Marly Youmans

NEWS

The most recent addition to The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline is Phillis Wheatley by Kathryn Voorhees.

Kathleen McClung is the recipient of the 2019 Mezzo Cammin Scholarship to the Poetry by the Sea conference.

FEATURED ARTIST
Megan Marlatt:Looking like large puppet heads, it was "anima", the root of "animation", that led me to the making of the big heads, (or "capgrossos" as they are called in Catalonia where I learned the craft.) Anima is the soul or what breathes life into a being and to animate an inanimate object, an artist must insert a little soul into it. However to bring attention to what is invisible, (the soul), I chose to mold its opposite in solid form: the persona, the ego, the big head, the mask. Nearly every culture across the globe has masks. They allow performers to climb into the skin of another being and witness the other's world from behind their eyes. While doing so, the mask erases all clues of the performer's age, gender, species or race. In this regard, I find them to be the most transformative and empathic of all human artifacts.

ARCHIVES
LINKS
POETRY
32 Poems
The Academy of American Poets
The Atlantic
The Christian Science Monitor
The Cortland Review
Favorite Poem Project
The Frost Place
The Iowa Review
Light Quarterly
Modern American Poetry
Measure
The Poem Tree
Poetry
Poetry Daily
Poetry Society of America
Poets House
Raintown Review
Slate
String Poet
Valparaiso Poetry Review
Verse Daily
Women's Poetry Listserv
The Yale Review

CONFERENCES
AWP
Bread Loaf
Poetry by the Sea
Sewanee


PUBLISHERS

Barefoot Muse Press
David Robert Books
David R. Godine Press
Graywolf Press
Headmistress Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Louisiana State University Press
Northwestern Univ Press
Ohio Univ Press
Persea Books
Red Hen Press
Texas Tech Univ Press
Tupelo Press
Univ of Akron Press
Univ of Arkansas Press
Univ of Illinois Press
Univ of Iowa Press
Waywiser Press
White Violet Press

BOOKS
Alibris
City Lights
Grolier Poetry Bookshop
Joseph Fox Bookshop
Prairie Lights
Tattered Cover Bookstore

OTHER RESOURCES
92nd Street Y
Literary Mothers
NewPages.com
Poets & Writers
10X10