POETRYFEATURED POET FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Jane Blanchard


Writer's Retreat

Rising early, donning ready sneakers,
down four sets of stairs she steps to reach the
parking lot, another to the beach, a
route accommodating ocean seekers.

After breakfast, plus a quarter-liter-
cola, she relaxes for an hour
on the Web, then minutes in the shower,
draining condo's meager water heater.

Housework goes so quickly that it borders
on compulsion, but the television's
interruptions do delay decisions:
when and where and what for take-out orders.

All poetic efforts yield such bad rhyme
that she wonders whether just to head home
(without finishing a must-be-read tome)
or to settle for advancing bedtime.

Inspiration can be quite elusive
when a writer tries to be reclusive.

Query

I do not mean to cause a fuss,
But I am rather curious:

Dear poet, why a pseudonym?
Who dares to let "her" pose as "him"?

In case of the reverse, should "he"
Assume the right to write as "she"?

Or have you kept the sex the same,
While using quite a different name,

Perhaps arranging letters so
Their source a reader may not know?

What motivates this common ploy
That makes identity a toy?

How can I take you seriously
When you play such a game with me?


































AUTHOR BIO

Jane Blanchard divides her time between Augusta and Saint Simon's Island, Georgia. She is looking forward to attending the Sewanee Writers' Conference again this summer. Her poetry has appeared previously in Mezzo Cammin and recently in Calamaro, The Dark Horse, The Lyric, The Rotary Dial, and U.S.1 Worksheets. Her first collection Unloosed is available from White Violet Press of Kelsay Books.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Sylvia Ashby
Jane Blanchard
Barbara Crooker
Lisa DeSiro
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Andrea Hackbarth
Kathryn Jacobs
Mina Le
Charlotte Mandel
Libby Maxey
Joan Mazza
Susan McLean
Sally Nacker
Janice D. Soderling
Myrna Stone
Wendy Videlock
Doris Watts
Marly Youmans

NEWS

The most recent addition to The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline is Modern Age Japanese Women Poets: Yosano Akiko, Hayashi Fumiko, Kiyoko Nagase, Chika Sagawa by Patricia Callan.

Wendy Videlock was the recipient of the 2016 Mezzo Cammin Scholarship to the Poetry by the Sea conference.

FEATURED ARTIST
Mary Temple has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York for the past 20 years. She moved to the borough after completing her MFA in painting and drawing at Arizona State University. She then went on to study at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999.

Mary Temple has exhibited her work throughout the US and abroad. The artist has completed commissioned projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SF, CA; SculptureCenter, LIC, Queens, NY; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Rice Gallery, Houston, TX; Western Bridge, Seattle, WA; The Drawing Center, NY; UCSF Mission Bay Medical Center; The Bunkamura Museum, Tokyo, Japan; NYU Abu Dhabi, among many other venues. Her work has been reviewed in publications including, The New York Times, Artforum, ArtNews and Art in America. This year the artist will complete major public projects for the City of New York's Percent for Arts program, at the historic landmark site, McCarren Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as well as at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital's new wing, The Building for a Better Future.

You can view more work from this series and others at Temple's website: marytemple.com.

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