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SEPTEMBER 26, 2012: Announcing New Website for Poet Mary MacRae

 

The deeper I go into Mary MacRae’s poems the more spacious my own world becomes. Anne Cluysenaar

The English poet Mary MacRae died of cancer in 2009. Were it not for the love and commitment of her poet-friends at Second Light Network, we might not have the gift of her poetry to savor in our quiet moments. Poet, teacher and consultant to Second Light Network, Myra Schneider  wrote and asked me to let you know that they have established a website for Mary.

The wide range of poems in Inside the Brightness of Red includes poignant work written when she was terminally ill but also beautiful lyric poems about childhood, youth, relations with parents, marriage, friendship and her responses to art and nature. Dilys Wood

Mary’s love of life … of nature, birds, flowers, gardens, art and family and friends are evident in precise multicolored layers of her work. She was published in several prestigious literary magazines.

Her enormous warmth and zest for life were balanced with a sensitivity and deep compassion that invited many to confide in her, came into play in her perceptive and incisive criticism and pervaded her poems. Lucy Hamilton

Mary won two poetry prizes: Scintilla magazine’s Long Poem Competition and a joint first prize in the Second Light Poetry Competition. Her work is included in the second Poetry School Anthology, Entering the Tapestry (Enitharmon Press 2003) and in Four Caves of the Heart (Second Light Publications, 2004). Second Light published two collections of Mary’s poems: Inside the Color of Red and As Birds Do. 

To read a small selection of Mary MacRae’s poems – of special note is Jury – link HERE.  You can buy Mary’s two poetry collections through the website.

With permission I published the following poem before on this blog and I post it again as an example of Mary’s work. Please enjoy, but remember that it is copyrighted with all rights reserved. It belongs to Mary’s estate. This poem is from Inside the Color of Red. 

Note: I have also put a link to Mary’s site, Myra’s site, and to Second Light Network in my blogroll under Poets and Friends, which a new and developing section of my blogroll.

ELDER

by Mary MacCrae

·

A breathing space:

the house expands around me,

·

unfolds elastic lungs

drowsing me back

·

to other times and rooms

where I’ve sat alone

writing, as I do now,

when syncope –

·

one two three one two –

breaks in;

·

birdcall’s stained

the half-glazed door with colour,

·

enamelled the elder tree

whose ebony drops

·

hang in rich clusters

on shining scarlet stalks

·

while with one swift stab

the fresh-as-paint

·

starlings get to the heart

of the matter

of matter

·

in a gulp of flesh

and clotted juice that leaves me

·

gasping for words transparent

as glass, as air.

© poem and photograph, Estate of Mary MacRae, all rights reserved

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MYRA SCHNEIDER’S NEW POETRY COLLECTION, HOMAGE TO RAY BRADBURY

WHAT WOMEN WANT: I just finished reading a sampling of poems that British poet, Myra Schneider just sent me. They’re from her newly published collection, What Women Want, from Second Light Publications.

The collection focuses on the ability of words and women to effect change. Myra explains:

“The booklet is in two sections. The main section has poems that examine the lives of women. The central poem in this section is a ten page narrative about Caroline Norton (1808-1877). She was the grand-daughter of Sheridan, the famous British playwright. Carolina was a beautiful society lady in London and a writer who had a dramatic life. Her brutal husband took away her three young children and gave them to his hard-hearted sister to look after in Scotland far out of her reach. Caroline’s difficulties led her to fight for women’s rights. She was the first woman reformer in Britain in the nineteenth century. Her pamphlet, Separation of Mother and Child by the Laws of Custody of Infants Considered (1837) is a work of art. With years of persistence she achieved some changes in the English law. These paved the way for later reforms.
 
CAROLYN NORTON
“The poem, Carolyn Norton, ends by referring to the fact that many women in today’s world are denied basic human rights. It is followed by two poems which look at this situation. Other poems are about the frustrated life of my mother, also my mother-in-law, a stalwart refugee from Hitler. The last poem takes an upbeat look at women. The booklet begins with a section of general and lyrical poems which cover a range of subject matter.” Myra Schneider.
·
 Included in the collection is also this wonderful poem, posted here with permission…
·

WOMEN RUNNING

by

Myra Schneider

after Picasso: Deux femmes courant sur la plage

·

Look how their large bodies leaping

from dresses fill the beach, how their breasts

swing happiness, how the mediterraneans

of sea and sky fondle their flesh. Nothing

·

could rein them in. The blown wildnesses

of their dark animal hair, their hands joined

and raised, shout triumph. All their senses

are roused as they hurtle towards tomorrow.

·

That arm laid across the horizon,

the racing legs, an unstoppable quartet, pull

me from my skin and I become one of them,

believe I’m agile enough to run a mile,

·

believe I’m young again, believe age

has been stamped out. No wonder I worship

at the altar of energy, not the energy huge

with hate which revels in tearing apart,

·

in crushing to dust but the momentum

which carries blood to the brain, these women

across the plage, lovers as they couple

and tugs at the future till it breaks into bloom.

·

Order through Second Light Publications or directly from myraschneider@gmail.com

You can link to Myra’s website that includes information about her other poetry collections and her schedule of poetry classes and other events HERE.

© 2012, cover art and poem, Myra Schneider, All rights reserved
Illustration ~ Carolyn Sheridan, public domain

Δ

“You’re here to have fun …”
 
·
RAY BRADBURY (1920-2012)
American Author
fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery
twenty-seven novels
six-hundred short stories
eight million copies sold
thirty-six languages
HE WILL BE MISSED.
·
Video posted to YouTube by  
Photo credit ~ U.S. Government, Public Domain
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SECOND LIGHT NETWORK

Dilys Wood

Dilys Wood is poet, editor and convenor of Second Light Network of Women Poets. She has edited four anthologies of women’s poetry, mainly with Myra Schneider and has published two collections of poetry, Women Come to a Death and Antarctica.

SECOND LIGHT NETWORK OF WOMEN POETS

(SLN)

by

Dilys Woods 

I founded Second Light (SLN), a network of over 300 women poets aged over forty, in 1994. We followed this forteen years later with ARTEMISpoetry, a journal for women’s poetry.

The best feedback for me is that a group of members have met informally or that two members are exchanging poems. Other good news is of members’ successes in national competitions and enthusiastic reports of our annual events, including a poetry competition, two-day festivals in London (Spring and Autumn), and an residential course.

SLN events are supportive. The tone is constructive.There is no put-down for those over 50, over 70, or over 90. We welcome younger women poets as Associate Members.

The inspiration for Second Light was that vibrant, exciting work is absolutely not sex or age-related. Probably all serious editors and organisers know this, but some number-crunchers are obsessed with youth, trendiness, or any kind of gimic. There may be reverence for famous older poets, but the pattern of women’s lives may mean that a woman may be a ‘new poet’, just starting to publish, at any time up to old age.

The other aspect of SLN’s work – aspiration – was latent in the original mission and has flourished because so many members are talented and ambitious.We play to these strengths by choosing distinguished poets to lead workshops and to contribute to ARTEMISpoetry. We also regularly interview and review for the magazine important women poets not born in/living in the UK.

Five anthologies and three individual collections show-case members’ work. Each member may post a poem and CV details on our website (www.secondlightlive.co.uk). ARTEMISpoetry – open to any woman poet to submit – carries many poems and we offer far more reviews of women’s collections than most magazines.

For more details of SLN see our website HERE.


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THE NEW SAPPHOS

Dilys Wood

Dilys Wood is poet, editor and convenor of Second Light Network of Women Poets. She has edited four anthologies of women’s poetry, mainly with Myra Schneider and has published two collections of poetry, Women Come to a Death and Antarctica. 

Women Come to a Death
Poetry. 1997. 57 pages. ISBN 0 904872 28 9. £6.95.

Death is both personal and political in this remarkable collection, which begins with the magnificent long poem, ‘The Death of a Safety Officer’, a dialogue between the dying man and a chorus of women, which relates the closure of the South Yorkshire pits and death of a way of life to the old age and death of an individual miner. The book closes with a sequence of poems where the author nurses her mother through death from cancer. They describe the painful detail of the illness and the strange suspension of normal life as mother and daughter spend these last revealing months together. Courtesy of Katabasis Books: English and Latin American Poetry and Prose

♦ ♦ ♦

Now that you know a bit about our guest blogger today, I hope you will take the time to enjoy this post. It’s the first of two. The next  I will publish tomorrow. J.D.

NEW SAPPHOS, CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN POETS

by

Dilys Wood 

I run a network for women poets and naturally I want our members to be treated equitably, with recognition of any woman’s potential to be in the top flight of creative artists.

Some poets feel that ‘male and female he made them’ should not be an issue. I disagree because I want to celebrate and gain personal inspiration from the last fifty years. There has been a vastly increased involvement of women as students of poetry, published poets, book purchasers and consumers of ‘products’ such as poetry festivals. I also want it debated why this has not meant equality of treatment.

Why do some leading journals publish fewer poems by women and use fewer women reviewers? What part is played by prejudice and what by our diffidence? Do we submit enough work and persist when submissions are rejected? Are there subtle shades of prejudice? Are we taken seriously on ‘women’s topics’ but not when writing about spiritual experience or politics?

A first step is to convince ourselves that there is no ceiling. Emily Dickinson surely lives up to the epithet ‘unique genius’? Her work is incredibly economical, dense, universal and deeply moving. She is totally original in style and thought. Her work alone ought to kill the slur that biology-based inferiority explains historical under-achievement.

So many more women have found now their voice. Let’s celebrate poets who excite us, from Emily Bronte (say) to Jorie Graham (say). We can also start thinking seriously about differences and about inflated reputations. Let’s be wary about ‘celebrity status’. This tends to narrows true appreciation. Read voraciously. Include lesser known poets and dead poets. You will be impressed by how much exciting writing is on offer.

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