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Index Previous Next 2008 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit The Retrieval Here again. The way you used to wake us – rouse us with that impatient stare. A stubborn, boy-crazy, eighth-grader you make the same requests. We say them with you. Isn't this what happens when some of us bring water to the dead? This private shift to living only sometimes with the living. Eight months among the missing and you come padding back in your white socks and jeans; specter of grief we locked away before it made us more dry-mouthed and speechless than our counterparts in dreams. Grief like light encounters in a half-sleep: your moist face in a morning mirror. Are you in someone else's too? O, city of mirrors. And how, each night you casually resume at every threshold to every listing room that awkward lean -- the one you would do when you could not ask, but knew that we could help. Your bony shoulder barely touching the wall; your right foot crossing the other. So much the pose of one who is neither coming nor going. It's difficult to know why we should wake. Still, every day we rise like guardians ex officio, like gate-keepers to a city of passing shades -- each one a new acquaintance with your face. Each one a new petition for deliverance of the innocent and quaking. . Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit. Published in The Comstock Review , January 2008.

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Award Winning Poetry Title Award Journal Year Plan B Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest - First Place 2025 Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought 2025 Is there a Final Exam? Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest - First Place 2025 Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought 2025 Ethos, Logos, Pathos Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest - First Place 2025 Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought 2025 Ode for an Absent Student Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi-Finalist 2020 Naugatuck River Review 2020 Smiling at the Executioner Pushcart Prize Nominee 2020 2020 Sky Island Journal 2020 Afterlives Featured in Verse Daily - 2024 2020 Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts 2020 Ode for an Ode on a Grecian Urn 2019 Folio Editor's Prize - Winner 2019 Folio 2019 Bad Apology Also featured in March 2020 #Tbt 2017 SWWIM 2017 Sugaring Robert Frost Award - 2014 Finalist 2016 Naugatuck River Review 2016 The Bath Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi-Finalist 2014 Naugatuck River Review 2014 Amber Alert New South Writing Contest - Winner 2013 new south: Georgia St. Univ. Journal 2013 At the Grieving Parents Meeting Rita Dove Poetry Award - Semi Finalist 2012 River Styx 2012 Bingo Night for Missing and Exploited Children Blue Room Collective - "Grabbed Anthology" 2012 The Adirondack Review 2012 The Arrangement Robert Frost Award - First Runner Up 2012 Beauty/Truth: Ekphrastic Poetry 2012 Catharsis Erskine J. Poetry Prize - Finalist 2012 Smartish Pace 2012 1-800-THE-LOST 2011 American Poet Prize - Winner 2011 American Poetry Journal 2011 The Retrieval Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit 2008 Comstock Review 2008 The Rescue Muriel Craft Bailey Award - Special Merit 2008 Comstock Review 2008 Museum Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award 2008 Comstock Review 2008 The Rape of Chryssipus Spoon River Editors' Prize - Winner 2007 Spoon River Poetry Review 2007 Odalisque Muriel Craft Bailey Award - Finalist 2006 Comstock Review 2006 Sanriku Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award - Winner 2006 Willow Springs 2006 On Recognizing Saints Annie Finch Prize - Winner 2005 National Poetry Review 2005 Against Elegies Featured in Verse Daily 2004 National Poetry Review 2004 Beginner's Mind From the book "Advantages of Believing" 1978 Williams College Archives 1978 On Rewinding Emerson Original Poetry Award - Winner 1974 Emerson College Review 1974 * forthcoming

ABOUT M.B. McLatchey is an American poet and writer with a lifelong passion for literature, philosophy, and ancient and modern languages. She is a Professor of Humanities at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S. Ambassador to the HundrED global foundation, Chancellor for the Florida State Poets Association, former Poet Laureate of Florida's Volusia County (2015-2025), Arts & Wellness Ambassador for the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and poetry reader for the Miami based journal SWWIM . She has received numerous awards, including the 2011 American Poet Prize by The American Poetry Journal, the 2012 Robert Frost Award, and was recently nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize as well as Best of the Net award. In 2015, she was a Poet Laureate nominee for the State of Florida. Promoted as offering "The best poetry course in Florida! ", she is featured in the July 2017 issue of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) . M.B. is a graduate of Harvard University with over 30 years of college teaching. The list of institutions she has taught at include the University of Central Florida, Rollins College, Valencia College, Harvard University, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She has also worked as a speechwriter for a state senator, as a reporter for a daily newspaper, as a magazine editor for a major publisher, as a reader and book reviewer for poetry journals, and as a Board of Trustees member for a private college in Vermont. She has authored many literary reviews, compiled text books for Humanities courses, conducted poetry and writing workshops throughout the United States, helped mentor young poets, judged numerous poetry contests, and is a frequent contributor to books on writing, poetry, and teaching. Her debut poetry collection The Lame God was awarded First Place in the 16th Annual May Swenson Poetry Award by Utah State University Press in 2013. She was awarded the 2014 FLP Chapbook Prize by Finishing Line Press for her book Advantages of Believing . Her book, Beginner's Mind , published in 2021 by Regal House Publishing, was awarded the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award as well as the Readers' Favorite Five-Star Award . Her newest book, Smiling at the Executioner, whose title poem was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, was released in November 2023 by Kelsay Books. M.B. has received numerous academic teaching awards including Harvard University's coveted Danforth Prize, the Harvard/Radcliffe Prize for Literary Scholarship, and the Brown University Elmer Smith First Place Award for excellence in teaching. Her most recent poetry awards include the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry, the Robert Frost award, the Spoon River Poetry Review’s Editors’ Prize, the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award, the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award, the Folio Editor's Prize, as well as a Best of the Net nomination. My Links: My Facebook Site My Author's Guild Site My Amazon Author Site My HundrED Ambassador Site My Linkedin Site My Teaching Philosophy What Others are Saying: Of Poets & Poetry - Interview AWP - In the Spotlight How I Write - Interview Florida State Poets Association Poetry Workshop Reviews Seamus Heaney Edward Field NPR's Tom Williams Florida Book Review Brad Crenshaw Kickstand Poetry - Interview New South: Georgia Spoon River Poetry Review Robert Frost Foundation Atlantic Center for Arts - Interview Sky Island Journal Review Salem College The Author's Guild - Interview Beginner's Mind From Shipyard to Harvard Yard: Embracing Endless Possibilities by M. B. McLatchey Winner of the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award Readers' Favorite ® 2021 Award - 5 Stars A "fourth grade teacher that many readers will wish they’d had"! - Kirkus Review More Info

Award Winning Poetry - 2025 Winner of the Lazuli Literary Group 2024 Writing Contest - 3 of 3 - 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 - First Place. Other poems in collection: "Is there a Final Exam?" and "Plan B". 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 Previous Next

Index Previous Next Dream Song For a sleeping student Our voices, a gurgling brook, became your parting song: a stream grading stones – meandering – where bend becomes slope. You teetered in the current – strong, young – yet bowed by doubts, centuries-old cares. A stream grading stones, meandering. Where might we have extracted you, harness and rope, young – yet bowed by doubts, centuries-old cares? Cold depths are ours to brave alone, I was also told. Might we have extracted you, harness and rope, what threshold did you cross; what pieces rearrange? Cold depths are ours to brave alone. I was also told our troubles wane when guardian spirits learn our names. What threshold did you cross; what pieces rearrange? Our voices, a gurgling brook, became your parting song. Our troubles wane when guardian spirits learn our names, bend becomes slope. You teetered in the current – strong. . Copyright © 2025 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Teach. Write . Fall 2025.

Index Previous Next NRR's 6th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi Finalist The Bath For a foster child The slightest wrong move could mean tidal waves. Certain disaster to a boy with everything resting on delicate tissue – a bruised knee to which you command a corps of plastic ships – an austere but (you promise) heavenly beach where men may lie down in soft sand, a tiny fold in your thigh; write letters and find oranges to eat; plan the next battle. Hard that you know so much about these distances from home. A trumpet blast! You steam your mission out. Predictably bad weather and still another perilous gorge of falls and fleshy islands. The search resumes for citrus or, at least, friendly harbor. I wish you both -- and not another tour of calculations tossed or unchartered, and not this shadowy map on water. . Copyright © 2014 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Naugatuck River Review's 6th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi Finalist. Published in Naugatuck River Review , November 2014.

Index Previous Next 2012 Robert Frost Award - First Runner Up The Arrangement I. Because we were getting old enough our instructor took us to look at (not to touch) some pictures grown men drew. We tripped like new recruits through orderly rooms. Some were sternly directed to carry their shoes as we made our hushed advance. In the dim hall we could hear a classmate whimpering as she would whenever she felt too far from home. Her tears a kind of prelude to the work itself: Flowers in a Vase - more paint than flowers whose stems arched away, whose poppies bleated and sprayed yellow tears on our starched uniforms, on the perfect walls. All the way home, the yellow hung on our clothes. The bus took us sluggishly along, and we felt the road under its beefy wheels change to a luminous river of paint and the trees gave up their souls in Autumn's clay glow. II. I knew what it meant but not really. So I took the stairs two by two for you, like any other day. In my pocket, paintings on postcards, a stick of gum. In the kitchen below, Dad had grown small beside the cakes the ladies brought. He would not eat, he would not speak to relatives in the hall, and the relatives awkwardly leaning on end-tables like faded photos of themselves. Mother was proud to find me at my prayers and honoring the adults who were clearly "spent". When she pressed her head to mine, I felt her hair like fingers on my brow: a gesture she'd learned from you, mother to mother, and was teaching me now. And, this was "hard" and "each of us will have his own lament." It took all I had to steady my temple to hers - to keep my sorrow apart - as we planned the next few hours: where the aunts would sleep and who would order the flowers. . Copyright © 2006 M. B. McLatchey All rights reserved. 2012 Robert Frost Award - First Runner Up, Robert Frost Foundation . Judge's Review

Index Previous Next NRR's 11th Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi Finalist Ode for an Absent Student So many dramas have played themselves out: a girl who saw through us, our Scout’s-honor truths; a girl scribbling her own proofs on the walls of a cell; a girl singing Fado in a tilted café, her star-rise a perfect – a textbook – chandelle; or, a girl whose shrill call feathers the walls of a well. Well of knowledge, coins, half-lives; mortar and water, a god’s paring knife. For his warrior mettle, Aristotle made Alexander recite – not the songs of Ajax – but the chant of his mother’s midwife. How she crooned at the sight of his scalp. Quick breaths, short beats like a cuckoo’s heart in flight; later, a conqueror’s lullaby; an air in clipped verse for his trek across the east, for his rise and fall, for the sound of his troops’ flat feet. Airs like anthems we hear in our sleep; bright conquests or the dull retreat. This morning marks three weeks. Your peers – all of us – proceed because there is a map to walk, countries to Hellenize – or not. Seas, you and Alexander must have known, cannot be crossed with brute force, missiles and stone. There is the compass that is another rower’s heartache for his home; the crow’s nest call that it will not be long. Things you forgot when you set out alone. . Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Naugatuck River Review's 11th Narrative Poetry Contest - Semi Finalist Published in the Winter/Spring 2020 issue of Naugatuck River Review .