People use the word 'closure.' It's not about closure, it's more about justice. ― John Walsh, father to Adam Walsh. Award Winning Poetry - 2008 Muriel Craft Bailey Award The Rescue People use the word 'closure.' It's not about closure, it's more about justice. ― John Walsh, father to Adam Walsh. Today in the news: Miraculous Rescue An uncle drags a shark to shore to save his near-dead nephew. A bull of a shark, the arm that it tore from the boy when he waved for help fueled the beast's palate; its tail in the uncle's grip, a blur of blood claret and kelp; the husks from his palms, a grim and edible kale. I want a shark that I can wrestle and make it spit you out. To make it yearn for its strength, to thrash about as I nestle its nose in my grip. I want to turn you loose from a palpable place: a well, a shed, a jaw. I want the monster to face me and beg for the law. Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award Special Merit. Published in The Comstock Review , January 2008. Previous Next

Index Previous Next The End of Knowing The absence of Copernicus’s scope. Stuttering logos. The ego’s trophy halo. The quiet, unnatural death of the three artistic proofs. The excuse rather than the fight. Homer’s limping hero, Buddha’s blind eye. Plato’s cave dweller empowered by the shadow maker; the messenger despised. A crush of valedictorians still tethered to their mothers’ seedy placentas. The golden bough made bronze for more to enter. Elysium no longer the nerve center. The present, past, and future: Picasso’s flung bones in Guernica – discordant tones, discordant consciousness. The epic hero homeless, more or less. . Copyright © 2021 M. B. McLatchey All rights reserved. Published in The Criterion , April 2021.

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Published in Metamorphoses , 2019 Prev 8 Next FROM MUTINY TO MUTINY From mutiny to mutiny I give myself up to poetry overcoming the hardships of insidious darkness the vertigo of longing in the manacles of passion the loss to my pulse in that singular gift of shock and tumult DE MOTIM EM MOTIM De motim em motim entrego-me à poesia a vencer a escuridade as agruras da insídia a vertigem da saudade na paixão de algemar o perdimento ao meu pulso nessa dádiva singular de sobressalto e tumulto Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Published in Metamorphoses , Fall 2019. Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis . Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

Index Previous Next Leaving the Mainland The last resort as some wags dub it. And now for the first time since leaving the mainland we feel it. So narrow an approach, the road we're on seems less a slip of land than a channel of water. And everywhere the doubling back of life scenes: herons teetering on one leg as if to remain prescient of two worlds - this one that warms us through car glass, and the other a stirring life submerged. Island of bones. So overwhelmed were they by life's remains - so many bones - that de Leon and trails of others found there. The terrible name must have given breadth to their worst fears. Ships like theirs brought to grief by poorly marked reefs or the lure of a light on a cow's tail. And after disaster, the call - but not for help- among the islanders. A wreck! Prosperity from ruined ships - a life no one had entertained. Still, there they were chasing submerged treasures. A slip in judgment, perhaps. But given the choice between limestone too hard for digging graves or an ocean of pyramids, who could blame them - certainly neither of us - for wanting to live? . Copyright © 2004 M. B. McLatchey All rights reserved. Published in The American Poetry Journal , Summer/Fall 2005.

Published Poems Title Journal Year Award 1-800-THE-LOST American Poetry Journal 2012 2011 American Poet Prize - Winner Sort by Year * forthcoming

Sky Island Journal - Reviews J ason Splichal and Jeff Sommerfeld, Founders and Co-Editors, Sky Island Journal Smiling at the Executioner, April 2020 Review Pushcar t Prize Nominee 2020 Best of the Net Nominee 2021 "Smiling at the Executioner " is the epitome of what we consider powerful poetry to be. The emotional and intellectual transport it provides is nothing short of astonishing. Vivid, palpable imagery saturates the perfect pacing of this svelte, knife-like piece. Your craft is elegant, tight, and overtly physical throughout; the ebb and flow of your restraint and revelation rewards us in ways that linger long after your poem has left our lips. Your ability to extend a metaphor tenderly and unflinchingly is a true gift. Like all great art, "Smiling at the Executioner" is a gift that keeps giving; we discover more about it, and ourselves, with every reading. Its voice spoke to us immediately, and we are beyond excited to share it with the world. Rate My Professor: A Rebuttal, November 2022 Review "Rate My Professor: A Rebuttal " spoke to us immediately. Intensely personal yet wildly accessible, it transports and challenges us in ways that poems seldom do. This powerful, vulnerable, tapestry of human landscape is a meditation on the presence of absence and the absence of presence, and it bears fruit in such beautiful and unexpected ways... The elegance of your craft, and “Rate My Professor: A Rebuttal,” are two gifts that keep on giving; we discover more about them, and ourselves, with every reading. Pop Quiz, January 2024 Review "Pop Quiz " is vulnerable, tense, powerful, and so incredibly accurate; it transports and challenges us in ways that poems seldom do. This piece—like so many of our favorite M.B. pieces—is a meditation on the presence of absence and the absence of presence, and it bears fruit in such personal, beautiful, and unexpected ways. Like all great art, “Pop Quiz” sticks its landing and is a gift that keeps on giving; we discover more about it, and ourselves, with every reading.

Index Previous Next First Place - Lazuli Literary Group Ethos, Logos, Pathos Ethos Because we are different from our dogs that leave their scent on white fence posts; the raised hind leg, the pioneering boast. Because we stand upright, wonder at vaulted ceilings, songs in frescoes: A lifeless man sculpted in plaster and paint, lifting his flaccid hand to – what? An animating touch, a spark, self-understanding? Or a patriarch called to brave a flood, reclining like a Roman river god, not from too much wine, but from such a familiar forgetfulness of our limited time. Because we build pyramids with steps: discernment following the climb. Logos Because Athens never really fell. A radiant vase unearthed; centuries of burnt clay covering its storied face: a ring of epic battles – centaurs, half-man half-beast at the throat of a cool- headed Greek. The choice still the same: Nature untamed or the compass calibrated? The watchful peeling back to the urn’s Attic shape – not with landscape trenchers, but dental picks. Precision tools. A slow-moving, pointing trowel, a sieve. Because of the mindful coupling of powdery pieces: specs of gold from a goddess’s shield, a warrior’s bones too brittle to touch. The true story so reliant upon a delicate brush. Pathos Because the healer is the wounded one. Chiron, casualty of friendly fire, Heracles’s poisonous arrow: Sentenced, in his immortal state to a life of unfathomable sorrow – A perfect medic for the would-be hero: Jason, adrift at sea, until a centaur more adrift steels him: Push on, pass up the Sirens, regain a stolen throne . Asclepius, protégé, healer celebrity, and yet so alone – except for the healer more alone: Chin up, the physician’s heart cannot be helped; tend to your soul . Achilles, fed innards of boars to awaken a warrior core; to quiet his ego: bear marrow. Because for the life worth remembering the cure is an errant arrow. . Copyright © 2024 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Azure , Vol. 8, March, 2025. Winner of the Lazuli Literary Group's Fall 2024 Writing Contest. Other poems in collection: "Plan B" and "Is There a Final Exam?". Editor's comment: I enjoyed the steady strain of brilliance and the profound sense of wisdom that runs through each poem, well-delivered through narratively evocative language and clearly intentional choices in poetic form! To cloak modernity in a sense of magic is difficult to do, and yet I feel your poems do so in a very useful way. I hope our readers find in these pieces the impetus for an examined life. - Sakina B. Fakhri

The Rape of Chryssipus 2007 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors' Prize I chose "The Rape of Chryssipus" among a remarkable field of finalists for three reasons. The poem displays both wildness and restraint, and arranges the tension between these impulses through the clean elegance of its prosody. It makes me think of Yeats's ambition to write a poem "as cold and passionate as the dawn." The poem also displays great breadth, making us feel both the particularity and the universality of the brutal acts it recounts. And finally, "The Rape of Chryssipus" recalls one of poetry's prime functions: to curse. Appalled by the occasion of the poem, I'm entranced by its ambition to transcend accusation. "The Rape of Chryssipus" is no less than a spell, calling upon elusive powers to enter the human world. -- Dr. Philip Brady, Judge 2007 Spoon River Poetry Review Editor's Prize The judge, Dr. Philip Brady , is the author of three books of poems and a memoir. He has received fellowships from Ohio and New York, and residencies at Yaddo, Hawthornden Castle, Fundacion Valparaiso, the Headlands Center, and Ragdale. He teaches at Youngstown State University, where he directs the Poetry Center and Etruscan Press. The Spoon River Poetry Review

Index Previous Next Pop Quiz Some bow their heads and wait for their pens to move. A ground cloud, like a fog, or an unexpected tide, pulls them away. Through the haze, the quiet one half-raises her hand, asks if – after today – there will be other chances . Today’s exam, I want to tell her, is not today’s exam. It is Everyman ’s call, nothing in stone; a practice run at squaring accounts; at facing what we did not plan; at being alone; a reference to the clock on our wall, whose hands advance with us or without us. I wait for them in the dim, rapt hush. A curtain rises. Scenes – like a showreel – flicker and flash: a hand untangling from a lover’s grasp; a slap for a ranting three-year old; a prayer clasp. As if to find answers, some raise their heads, gaze at a life scene outside: A yellow-breasted blackbird on a branch, savoring a grub in its beak. Other chances . Such a sweet ring. Winter’s buried bulbs; bloom in the next growing season. . Copyright © 2023 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Sky Island Journal , Issue #27, Winter 2024. From the editors: [This poem] is vulnerable, tense, powerful, and so incredibly accurate; it transports and challenges us in ways that poems seldom do. This piece—like so many of our favorite M.B. pieces—is a meditation on the presence of absence and the absence of presence, and it bears fruit in such personal, beautiful, and unexpected ways. Like all great art, “Pop Quiz” sticks its landing and is a gift that keeps on giving; we discover more about it, and ourselves, with every reading.

Index Previous Next Ode to the Heart In Memory of Fallen Eagle, Zachary Capra, ERAU 2018 * Heart, do what you do at times like this when all that Daedalus had warned comes true and Icarus goes tumbling to the sea. Plump up your strong defenses against parallels with myths and let a waxed wing disappear, and let his angels sing. * Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) trains hundreds of student pilots each year. A “Fallen Eagle” refers to one who tragically dies in an aircraft accident. . Copyright © 2018 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Of Poets & Poetry , 2020, a publication of The Florida State Poets Association.

Index Previous Next Academic Calendar for my first born Those first months in Fall Term, you slept and dreamed and grew like a cub waiting to be born, his mother’s womb in hibernation. My students watchful as my middle bloomed and bloomed. Commencement was the flower that flew away – your phrase; you were eight. You pursed your lips and blew. We made a wish and watched the fluffy head release its seeds. There were courses to take. First steps, first words, first bicycle, first broken heart. Each asking from you attachment to the same survivor traits: adventure forward, balance – and brake. Graduation, a recurring awakening to the yield in loss: Fallen leaves, detached fruit reseeding. The surprise of new buds on dank limbs. These were the notes, your song, your convocation hymn. . Copyright © 2025 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in The Soliloquist Journal