Elizabeth Austen

Marjorie Manwaring's "Letter From Zelda"

Elizabeth Austen — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000

In "Letter from Zelda," poet Marjorie Manwaring creates an imaginary letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, written by his wife Zelda from her room in a mental hospital.

Poet Colleen McElroy On "Crossing Oceans"

Elizabeth Austen — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:56:16 +0000

One of the most persistent stories about America — that it was made by immigrants fleeing "the old country" — is also one of the most incomplete. And since stories shape our perception of reality, poet Colleen McElroy is intent on telling another aspect of America's story in "Crossing Oceans." The poem appears in her most recent collection "Here I Throw Down My Heart" (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).

"Letter To Mick Jagger From The St. Paul Chapter Of The Daughters Of Norway"

Elizabeth Austen — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:42:47 +0000

The Woodstock generation may be aging, but don't try to tell them they're not still cool. Poet Marjorie Manwaring's "Letter to Mick Jagger from the St. Paul Chapter of the Daughters of Norway" captures the dissonance between how we feel inside, and how we may appear to others.

Karen Finneyfrock's Monstrous Spring

Elizabeth Austen — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:22:37 +0000

A Metro bus ride inspires poet, novelist and teaching artist Karen Finneyfrock to find a delightfully surprising personification for Northwest springtime in her poem "Monster."

Annette Spaulding-Convy's "Bonsai Nun"

Elizabeth Austen — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:48:21 +0000

As a former Dominican nun in the Roman Catholic Church, Annette Spaulding-Convy is intimately aware of the complex messages the institution sends about women's bodies. Her poem "Bonsai Nun" finds an apt metaphor in the severe pruning required to make a tree fit the aesthetic and spiritual ideal.

Marjorie Manwaring Offers A Poem Of Second Chances

Elizabeth Austen — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:44:32 +0000

As spring edges out winter and previously bare tree limbs are suddenly effusive with blossoms, there's a sense that almost anything -- or anyone -- deserves a second chance. In her poem "A Quiet," poet Marjorie Manwaring meditates on alternative endings and the possibility of redemption.

Poet Colleen McElroy On Choosing "What Stays Here"

Elizabeth Austen — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:54:41 +0000

In her poem "What Stays Here," Colleen McElroy imagines life as a female soldier who must choose between loyalty to herself, and loyalty to a military code that says "keep quiet" and "get along." Like many of the poems in McElroy's ninth collection, "Here I Throw Down My Heart," (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) the poem awakens us to voices and stories we might otherwise never hear with such intimacy and power.

Poet Carolyne Wright's "Ghazal For Emilie Parker"

Elizabeth Austen — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:16:52 +0000

It can be hard to know how to respond to tragedies on the scale of the Newtown, Conn. shooting. We want to do something, but what?

Poet Alice Derry On Mourning A Complicated Relationship

Elizabeth Austen — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Mourning begins in a kind of thick non-seeing,
only later clarified, gradually lightening,
until we recognize what our lives must carry.

So begins "The Planet Closest To Us," Alice Derry's frank and moving poem about grieving the loss of someone who it was not always easy to love -- her mother. Derry reads her poem, and talks about the unexpected gift in her mother's passing.

A Poet's View On Parenting And Chronic Illness

Elizabeth Austen — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Poet Suzanne Edison knows the ups and downs of chronic illness too well. Her daughter has juvenile myositis, a rare autoimmune disorder. Today she reads two poems about the way her child’s illness affects her parenting: “Betrayal” and “Bloodwork.”