Mary Ann Mayer
Mary Ann’s second book, Salt & Altitudes, was published in 2014 by Finishing Line Press. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared, most recently, in the anthologies They Work, We Write, honoring early textile mill workers (2016 Ocean State Poets) and Missing Providence (2015 Frequency Writers); in journals such as Salamander (Suffolk U. 20th yr. edition); and featured in The Providence Journal. The Origami Poems Project has distributed many of her poems as hand-made chapbooks.
A native of Lincoln, RI, Mary Ann is at work on a collection of historical poems set in the Blackstone Valley. Her first book, Telephone Man (2005) sets her father’s trade tales, in this region, into verse. She’s also inspired by the pastoral tradition, its (illusions of) idyll, and loves finding poems in moments when a link between the outer landscape and inner creates a spark. She believes that poetry is play, and play, beauty—(please visit the link to her Umbrella Journal essay “Poem as Play, Poet as Player”) http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2007/poetry/MaryAnnMayer-2.html)
Mary Ann has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, received Boston’s Grub Street prize, and was a finalist for The May Sarton New Hampshire Book Award. She is honored that her co-translation of Leonard Nathan’s poetry, published in the German periodical Trans-Lit-2, is installed in the Alpinarium, a museum and memorial to avalanche victims in Galtuer, Austria.
Pleasures & Pursuits: Skiing, mountaineering, travel, dogs, elders, practicing occupational therapy, dance, yoga, reading poetry criticism.
Two Favorite Lyrics:
Cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go under it… (Bob Dylan)
Range after range of mountains
Year after year after year.
I am still in love.
(Gary Snyder, 4x40086, On the summit)
Mary Ann's poetry
Zugunruhe
Ornithological term for the gathering and agitation of birds before migration
Invisible birds chirp. Rustling the branches.
Instinctively I stop; I raise my hand.
In the movement of trees, I find my own agitation.
(Wallace Stevens said that).
Overhead, a V-formation wing-beats the air.
The human heart yearns then turns homeward.
The birds repertoire is as determined as their red-wing patches.
The mockingbird has 39 songs and repeats them.
The tide follows the moons rule.
The mockingbird has 39 songs and repeats them.
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through me, in spite of real sorrows.
(Emerson said that).
Autumn is short days. The northern mountains cold.
All hepped up on milkweed, the Monarchs leave,
butterfly to Mexico.
A few stay behind on mountain tops, orange prayer flags
hinged to granite, waiting to freeze.
Every year, I climb a mountain
To hold one in my hand.
Old Friend In The Mezzanine
In the new bookshop
serving periodicals in different languages and coffee,
my love, I watched you.
You stood on the landing of the spiral stair
pressing a point.
Your hair broke in predictable places,
caught the light and
fell
in waves and jags,
sending your scent
downwind
through the forest of pulp,
to fell me where I stood,
on the ground floor of the new bookshop
that suddenly no longer smelled of paint.
A native of Lincoln, RI, Mary Ann is at work on a collection of historical poems set in the Blackstone Valley. Her first book, Telephone Man (2005) sets her father’s trade tales, in this region, into verse. She’s also inspired by the pastoral tradition, its (illusions of) idyll, and loves finding poems in moments when a link between the outer landscape and inner creates a spark. She believes that poetry is play, and play, beauty—(please visit the link to her Umbrella Journal essay “Poem as Play, Poet as Player”) http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2007/poetry/MaryAnnMayer-2.html)
Mary Ann has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, received Boston’s Grub Street prize, and was a finalist for The May Sarton New Hampshire Book Award. She is honored that her co-translation of Leonard Nathan’s poetry, published in the German periodical Trans-Lit-2, is installed in the Alpinarium, a museum and memorial to avalanche victims in Galtuer, Austria.
Pleasures & Pursuits: Skiing, mountaineering, travel, dogs, elders, practicing occupational therapy, dance, yoga, reading poetry criticism.
Two Favorite Lyrics:
Cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go under it… (Bob Dylan)
Range after range of mountains
Year after year after year.
I am still in love.
(Gary Snyder, 4x40086, On the summit)
Mary Ann's poetry
Zugunruhe
Ornithological term for the gathering and agitation of birds before migration
Invisible birds chirp. Rustling the branches.
Instinctively I stop; I raise my hand.
In the movement of trees, I find my own agitation.
(Wallace Stevens said that).
Overhead, a V-formation wing-beats the air.
The human heart yearns then turns homeward.
The birds repertoire is as determined as their red-wing patches.
The mockingbird has 39 songs and repeats them.
The tide follows the moons rule.
The mockingbird has 39 songs and repeats them.
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through me, in spite of real sorrows.
(Emerson said that).
Autumn is short days. The northern mountains cold.
All hepped up on milkweed, the Monarchs leave,
butterfly to Mexico.
A few stay behind on mountain tops, orange prayer flags
hinged to granite, waiting to freeze.
Every year, I climb a mountain
To hold one in my hand.
Old Friend In The Mezzanine
In the new bookshop
serving periodicals in different languages and coffee,
my love, I watched you.
You stood on the landing of the spiral stair
pressing a point.
Your hair broke in predictable places,
caught the light and
fell
in waves and jags,
sending your scent
downwind
through the forest of pulp,
to fell me where I stood,
on the ground floor of the new bookshop
that suddenly no longer smelled of paint.
