Ann Thompson
Prayer for a Daughter
Deliver her from
the noble man
licentious
in his drive
to prove
he's grown
into the man he fears
he never will become.
In time
she too may find
though he is good
and he is kind,
Unnumbered
are the ways
to be alone.
The Ingenue
for Mildred Manley, my maternal grandmother
She died at forty-two in 'forty-two.
Now nineteen still, a dancer, she arches
one barely outlined shoulder toward the lens,
raises an ingénue's focus, and laughs.
Only her eyes and hair, an imprecise
roaring twenties nimbus, can be seen.
As to the rest, the border of her flesh
is being lost to light, a cream on cream.
The edges disappear. My eyes fill in
her more exact distinctions. Gone for me
the angles of a girl who unlocked love
from crowds, but was herself a prisoner
of disappointed hope. In later years
she sang, as well. My mother kept her clips
in an old leather suitcase. Everywhere
we moved, the suitcase came in her own hand.
The clips reviewed "a voice as rich and dark
as honey, and yet with a throaty edge."
And here I find my border: in that voice.
We have no record of the way she held
her "Starlight Melody" as tenderly
as the infant she had been abandoned with,
but my imagination, and her child's
own aging recollections of the songs—
the dancing, and her absence, and the pain—
may redescribe the shadow of her light
across the fading background of her fame.
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| AUTHOR BIO |
| TA career writer/editor for over 30 years, Ann Thompson 's poetry is published in Europe (Acumen, here/there, The Journal, Lotus Eater, The North, Staple, Vine Leaves) and the U.S. (Ardor, Blast Furnace, Flyover Country Review, Literary Imagination, Lost Country, Mezzo Cammin, Tulane Review). She also has creative nonfiction in KYSO Flash and Leopard Seal; short fiction in Best New Writing 2014; and video poem remixes online. Thompson lives with her husband and teenage daughter outside Washington, DC.
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| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Catherine Chandler
Rebekah Curry
Anna M. Evans
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Vernita Hall
Katie Hoerth
Michele Leavitt
Barbara Loots
Joan Mazza
Kathleen McClung
Becca Menon
Diane Moomey
Sally Nacker
Stella Nickerson
Samantha Pious
Monica Raymond
Jennifer Reeser
Jane Schulman
Katherine Barrett Swett
Jane Schulman
Paula Tatarunis
Ann Thompson
Jo Vance
Lucy Wainger
Gail White
Cheryl Whitehead
Liza McAlister Williams
Sherraine Pate Williams
Marly Youmans
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The most recent addition to The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline is Jane Kenyon by Susan Spear.
Gail White and Nausheen Eusuf are the recipients of the 2017 Mezzo Cammin Scholarships to the Poetry by the Sea conference.
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| Alice Mizrachi is a New York based interdisciplinary artist working in the mediums of painting, installation, murals and socially engaged art. Her work explores the interconnectedness of individuals and community through the dual lens of compassion and empathy. Through figurative work that reinforces both personal and community-oriented identity, Alice aims to inspire creative expression and a sense of shared humanity through art.
Alice has worked as an arts educator for nearly twenty years for a variety of organizations including BRIC Arts, The Laundromat Project and The Studio Museum in Harlem. As a pioneer in the field of socially engaged art at the local level, Alice has been recognized and selected to develop arts education curriculum for organizations such as HI-ARTS (Harlem, NY), Dr. Richard La Izquierdo School and Miami Light Project. She has also been a panelist discussing community-engaged art for events at Brown University and The Devos Institute of Arts Management.
As a painter, Alice maintains both a studio practice and an extensive body of work as a muralist. Her work have been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, UN Women and the Museum of Contemporary Art in DC. She has been commissioned as a mural artist for projects in Amsterdam, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and across the United States by organizations and museum including: Knox-Albright Museum, Buffalo, NY; Worcester DCU (Worcester, Massachusettes); Wall Therapy (Rochester, NY); La Mama and Fourth Arts Block (NYC); Miami Light Project (Miami, FL); and, Chashama (Harlem, NY), among others.
Alice's mural and installation work has been constructed in galleries and public spaces as part of site-specific arts education and community development projects. Her work often engages local neighborhoods and reflects positive visual responses to social issues. Her process activates a shared space of love, hope, optimism and healing as a means to connect with participants. Frequent topics include identity, unity, migration and the sacred feminine.
Alice and her art have been featured in a variety of publications including the book, 2Create, Outdoor Gallery: New York City, the New York Times, and Huffington Post and The Architectural Digest. She has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and was an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in 2015. Alice was also the co-founder of Younity, an international women's art collective active from 2006-2012. She has received grants from The Puffin Foundation and The Ford Foundation. Her recent projects include a residency in Miami with Fountainhead, a residency with Honeycomb Arts In Buenos Aires and a mural with The Albright Know Museum in Buffalo. Alice currently holds a studio space at The Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx. Her upcoming projects include a workshop/ panel at Brown University and a book release in Summer 2017.
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