Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry, including Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance (2017 42 Miles Press Prize) and My Life in Heaven (2012 FIELD Prize). She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University.
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2017
Bounded
Then, tender regard for the fawns, one large, one small. Where is their mama? Are they practicing alone? And tenderness for those raised on a con, as I was. But […]
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2017
Beautiful Secret Something
I hold my problem. My jaw aches with it. Things end, with no regard for me. This is the way. I bake. I mend. The doe lies on the wooded […]
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2017
A Romantic Notion
A strong wind uses the dogwood to sound itself out. I walk in the yard one last time before bed to feel it. Private passion, said Keats, is what gives […]
Poetry
Fall 2012
Long Sunday
It's one thing to be the space for heartache, another to invent it. The two fawns said don't. Then for a while, some wind took my attention. And the female […]
Poetry
Fall 2012
Stupidity, Crabbiness, Moorings & Love
One possible Jesus was Jesus, stubbornly. For argument's sake, the clouds moved very fast. Good show! I wanted to say. The clarity is inside you is what I said instead. […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
Moving Away from an Event
—So I am thinking of Chinese lanterns. —no. I mean the plant, the orange husks. Because I could not have them (they were in someone else’s yard; I was not […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
A Short History of Anxiety
Consider dresses: the shapes and the shapes beneath— As in, How can this one not fit? And, How can this other one also not fit? * * * Apple, pear, […]