POETRY FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Laura Maffei


Mosaics Class in the Cubicle Age

We learn to score the glass and break it clean
avoid the dust, protect the eyes and hands,
and try an art first tried in other lands,
in other times--when craftsmen to a queen
laid out a floorscape made of stone, unseen
by most, or walls of gold professed a man's
divinity, or squares and careful plans
depicted pridefully a lush cuisine.

For us, a dozen after-work adults,
the goal is not so much in the results
as in the unaccustomed, pleasant state
of temporary artisan; the rate
of progress unimportant, and our style,
a choice of cheerful color in the tile.



To the Body of St. Lucy*

I circle you from head to toe to head
to where the silver mask conceals your face,
a miracle expired--their disgrace,
not yours, these gruesome tales they choose to spread
of living death, of frozen flesh, of dread-
ful tomb diversions in a wretched race
to heaven, instead of graces commonplace
and kind, by which we might be comforted.
Was this a girl who, besides her steely will
to keep that chastity which men so prize,
had kept as well a love of easing pain
or making peace or just the simple thrill
of song? And where my footfalls' echoes rise
inside this church, does part of that remain?

*St. Lucy is believed to be a virgin martyr from the 3rd century. For many years her body lay on display in a church in Venice, proclaimed by Roman Catholic authorities to be miraculously incorrupt. In 1955, however, it was decreed that her decomposing face be covered with a silver mask.

































AUTHOR BIO

Laura Maffei is the author of Drops from Her Umbrella (Inkling Press 2006) and founding editor of American Tanka (est. 1996). She has recently had work appear in the anthologies Hot Sonnets and Best of the Barefoot Muse.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Maryann Corbett
Nausheen Eusuf
Anna M. Evans
Rebecca Foust
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Karen Kelsay
Michele Leavitt
Laura Maffei
Susan McLean
Annabelle Moseley
Jennifer Reeser
Myrna Stone
Wendy Vardaman
Doris Watts
Marly Youmans

NEWS
> Poet Terri Witek and visual artist Jo Yarrington appear in Evolve the Conversation.

> Mezzo Cammin to sponsor
scholarship at the West Chester Poetry Conference.
FEATURED ARTIST
Holly Trostle Brigham: My paintings are rich with symbolism. I include flowers, butterflies, and other things from nature that communicate messages about the subject. These elements are interconnected with biographical references to tell a larger story about the sitter's life or place in history.
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
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BOOKS
Alibris
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Grolier Poetry Bookshop
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Tattered Cover Bookstore

OTHER RESOURCES
92nd Street Y
Literary Mothers
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Poets & Writers
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