Things Owls Ate

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Things Owls Ate, Mary Clare Powell, Amherst Writers & Artists Press, $14.00 Paperback, ISBN 0-941895-21-1, 72 pp Poetry. "In this technological age, Mary Clare Powell is a necessary poet. Her work embraces the full and glorious range of what it means to live life fully-- be it travel, caring for an aging mother, physics, middle age, erotic love, or riding the orbiter in the amusement park. No matter the arena, Powell clasps her subject with her two strong hands, bites in and offers its essence back to us in language dense with surprise and energy; this is poetry that compells us to live." --Genie Zeiger, author of How I Find Her: A Mother's Dying and A Daughter's Life and two volumes of poetry, Sudden Dancing and Leaving Egypt. "This graceful and grateful book will "crack open the autumn heart" of any reader lucky enough to find it. Mary Clare Powell's words remind us to treasure our fleeting and precious lives; as a poet, she has done her job well." --Leslea Newman, author, Still Life with Buddy and Signs of Love. Amherst Writers & Artists Press proudly announces the release of Things Owls Ate, a new book of poems by Mary Clare Powell. The celebrational reading will be Sunday, May 13 at 7 PM at the Jones Library, 43 Amity Street, Amherst, MA. This book gives us particular pleasure because Mary Clare has been deeply connected to AWA Institute since the first years of the original group, when she assisted Pat Schneider by co-leading a ten-week session using photography as well as writing. She is the photographer for the book of their writings, In Our Own Voices, and hosted in her home the writing session featured in the Florentine Films, Tell Me Something I Can't Forget. She has been a personal friend to many of the leaders of our low-income workshops, and has given freely of her time, her creativity, and her love, in serving as a staff member of our summer family camp for low-income writers and their children. In the wider world, Mary Clare is Associate Professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. She lives in Greenfield, with her partner, Violet Walker, AKA Pozey the Clown. SEPTEMBER GARDEN In abundant chaos the gardener sits. Tomatoes never tied to stakes sprawl, green ones hard as peach pits under drooping grasses solemn, tall. Preferring spareness, she recalls the spring order of rows, weeds only thoughts in seeds, sunflowers still black and white dots lying neatly, no heavy heads and heart shaped leaves in tatters crowding every day to meet the sun. Who could predict the peppers' stubborn fruit, the weave of vines gone flat, the glads all done, the blowsy poppies waggling mute? Who saw it coming when the paths were bare this strangled clutter in the chilly air? -- Mary Clare Powell from Things Owl Ate Amherst Writers & Artists Press Back to Catalog To order this book, please contact AWA at: AMHERST WRITERS & ARTISTS amherstwriters@gmail.com P.O. Box 1076 Amherst, MA 01004 (413) 253-3307 Make check payable to Amherst Writers & Artists Press. And, thank you for your support.