Search Results

Index Previous Next The Shadow Maker Our goal is to make it so there's as little friction as possible to having a social experience. – Mark Zuckerberg is the fifth richest man in the world; a harvester of pearls: our small talk like algae-rich waters and tides –new births, divorces, prizes our children acquire – feeding and keeping the oysters alive. is a master of illusion: figures in captioned poses, screen and light; shadows that dance on cave walls. Dramas that make us muse, lean in, post notes like medieval glosses in the margins of someone else’s domestic scenes; illuminators to an epic chant, a rhapsody’s god-dream. is the Ideal Prince, accepting the burden of princedoms, glory, survival, to jettison distinctions: good and depraved; monarch and something human saved. Better to be loved and feared rather than admired, or worse, revered. A lord who understands the desire to acquire. A magician with two hands. is a Philosopher King, able to discourse on goodness, justice, corrupting pride; hold court on high ideas: opinion, false truths, reality– a theory of forms that casts our lives in cycles, fruit and fallow; sinners redeemed. A god’s will altered; a cave master’s dream. . Copyright © 2022 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Sequestrum , Issue 32, June 2022.

We Are Coming Soon Sign up to be the first to know when we go live. Notify Me Thanks for submitting!

Index Previous Next 2006 Muriel Craft Bailey Award - Finalist Odalisque Early light, the chill of souls leaving. You draw up the sheet to cover us; the soft of musk, the body's heat from an air pocket, nudged and wayward. The scent of fading bleach. I give you the curl of my back, a nonevent. Yet, all of it art. Ingres and Ingres' Odalisque who drapes a velvet curtain's jeweled sash across her calf; whose hips turn in a wash of Turkish hues. A French settee or this bed: staging we need to fuel our natural lives. To feel the body lift to the extension of a kiss. The temporal shift in calling souls home -- stomach, thighs -- like this. A quickening in canvas or stone: my open mouth and your inarticulate moan. . Copyright © 2006 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award Finalist. Published in The Comstock Review , Fall/Winter 2006.

Index Previous Next Featured in Verse Daily - 2024 Afterlives Only faces in little boxes now; blinking and peering into a starless space, not knowing what to do except perhaps, wave. Our host asks each box: What’s new with you? We talk, in turns. We share the virtual part – meaning the essence . It’s lovely. How this half-body huddle forces us to talk; how we conform, like grafted stalks, to a new light source. Dante insists our afterlives will be the now eternal. I study my husband’s framed face unselfconsciously. No one can see me gazing at our years. My sons, I see, have become men whose eyes are equable and clear. Time lapses freeze, in pixel images, expressions like true selves they made as toddlers. On TV, the Pope delivers the Mass to empty seats. How alone he looks – in spite of the live stream. No pilgrims, no Vatican City festooned with flowers; only police to hold the barricades. And yet, the numbers say, more watched and listened to the liturgy than ever attended. On sofas that sag, on laptops, in drive-thru caravans for bread and wine. An insistence on right seasons if only to prove we are different from our dogs. We hear a whistle too. . Copyright © 2020 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Art s , Issue #1, Fall 2020. Featured in Verse Daily ® with permission, 2024.

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Published in Metamorphoses, 2019 Prev 10 Next FURTIVE STEPS I feel its traces furtive in the hollow of my hand gaining sudden strangeness luminosities, ravings of my lost senses arresting my heart descending to the bottom by the arm’s attrition until it reaches the slim wrist It is poetry arriving taking form and voice saying what I do not say TRAÇOS FURTIVOS Sinto-lhe os traços furtivos no côncavo da minha mão ganhando estranhezas súbitas agudezas, desvarios dos meus sentidos perdidos a prender-me o coração a descer até ao fundo pela rasura do braço até chegar ao desvão na delgadeza do pulso É a poesia que chega tomando forma e ruído a falar o que eu não digo 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 Inventory As in drill rehearsal for an embattled place, we call in mirrored breadths an inventory, mime in duet a list, a ruck sack check, that makes you gaze at your wrist, check watch, check pockets, jingle car keys chin-high like copper chimes, or like the bells that focus our attention in the Mass, a summoning that at the altar an ordained event—body as host, wine that was blood—is happening and is past. We are older now; this is what this is. A pause midstride before leaving one another, before leaving the house; a wave from the drive the way angels—disquieted— watch, then catch us by the hair. They hear our doubts. Leaving, returning , for them: deliverance , reunion with the stars, a coming home. For us, chance , a constant drum. . Copyright © 2022 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Southern Poetry Review , Vol. 60, issue 1.

Index Previous Next Learning the Scriptures Molusco … Aqui… Aqui. Bucket in hand, I follow his lead. His silhouette in the early light strikes a perfect toe point – not ballet but the liturgy’s greeting in a sun-steamed fandango. The hard, muddy floor of low tide, his stage. I see a clam spit where he taps his toe. Plunging my fingers into the cold, black muck, I wriggle it out: meal and sacrifice. A ritual-like rhythm that the dance ignites. When we steam the clams, the smell of vinegar and hops bubbling in the broth overtakes us. A purifying incense. Pabst Blue Ribbon for him and since I am ten, Porto with Ginger Al e. In the pot the clams flower and pop. Pelican-like, he tips his head back to let the fat belly slide down whole. Delicioso . Body, blood, soul, divinity. Clean-shaven for Mass. Brown. Azorean. Vovô , to me. A welcome substitute to the homily: Tap. Plunge. Smell. Dance. Taste . But not in a faith, not in a language I knew yet. . Copyright © 2018 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Naugatuck River Review : A Journal of Narrative Poetry That Sings, Summer/Fall 2018 – Issue 20.

Beginner's Mind From Shipyard to Harvard Yard: Embracing Endless Possibilities by M. B. McLatchey Winner of the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award "Rippling with wisdom and creative genius." - Readers' Favorite ® 5 - Stars “IT’S WONDERFUL TO HAVE A BEGINNER’S MIND.” – Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple "Anyone who has been influenced by a beloved teacher will savor this work; educators will especially appreciate it." - Library Journal "Would the bad children please raise their hands?" Discover why that statement and so many more from Beginner's Mind will have you either smiling or crying. For parents of young children, their teachers, homeschooling parents, teachers in training, and all adults interested in discovering a more loving way for children to blossom in school, Beginner's Mind is the how-to book we have been waiting for – a book that describes teaching the way we so passionately want it for our children. Told through the eyes of a very observant ten-year-old who, in real life, did go from shipyard town to Harvard University, Beginner's Mind gently answers the question, How do we want teachers to teach, inspire, and guide our children? Teacher comments: "A must-read for every parent and teacher.” – Kevin McIntosh, Class Dismissed "Read this book and re-open your mind.” – Robert Fleck, PhD, Art History as Science History "Beginner’s Mind has galvanized my teaching. ” – Frankie Rollins, The Grief Manuscript "The perfect gift for every teacher, from every loving parent." - Reader's Favorite More Info: Video Trailer for Beginner's Mind Of Poets & Poetry: Prerelease Book Interview Readers' Favorite 2021 Five-Star Reviews Beginner's Mind in the Classroom A Poem by the Author - "Beginner's Mind" About the Author ERAU Industry Day Poster Praise by Teachers for Beginner’s Mind : “Quirky, wise, fierce, impossibly creative, Miss D is the fourth-grade teacher we all wish we had. Risk-taking and grace-under-pressure are among the lessons she teaches her students in a hardscrabble shipyard town, sometimes at great cost. M.B. McLatchey has repaid the gift in full, adding Miss D to that pantheon of teachers we never forget, who change our lives forever – for the better. A must-read for every parent and teacher.” — Kevin McIntosh, Class Dismissed “Einstein said he loved talking to young children because they hadn’t yet been brainwashed by education. In the sciences, it is so important to look at nature with an open mind, without preconceived notions and biases. M.B. McLatchey captures all of this in Beginner’s Mind , revealing its secrets to the reader through the innocent eyes of a remarkable fourth grader. Read this book and re-open your mind.” — Robert Fleck, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Art History as Science History from the Paleolithic to the Present “M.B. McLatchey’s readers encounter a visionary in this memoir about her fourth-grade classroom, a place where the dictionary becomes a ‘Sanctuary,’ where students leave space at the top of their papers for Big Ideas, and where the Busy People’s constant motion isn’t considered a nuisance but made useful instead. The teacher, Miss D, insists that her students learn to trust themselves in a world where authority offers little room for singularity. ‘Don’t look back,’ she urges us, because every day is another chance to choose how you want to live your life. Beginner’s Mind has galvanized my teaching.” — Frankie Rollins, The Grief Manuscript “This is the work of an original, smart, and talented writer. She has a great storehouse of knowledge and a penetrating understanding of many subjects, including human beings. It is wonderful to read someone who knows a capella, Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, as well as Carol Channing and Hepburn (and knows the difference). When has a school room been given such vivid enunciation – the dioramas, shoe boxes, sticker-stars, and clay figure, the comfort of “half-truths” for other children, but not for Miss D’s. With a “sideways glance,” they took it all in, and were forgiving, like Miss D (whose door says welcome, an endless acquittal). It is difficult to see any of us “condemned,” and yet, there are standards. Standards! I can’t go on admiring line after line, when I am only on the first two pages in my commentary (and my language is so stupid and pale in comparison), but that’s what this essay does to me; it says look, see, remember. Word for word, sentence by sentence, I am enthralled. Thank God for Miss D, and for being reminded that at least one or two of my own teachers were, if not her equals, close sisters. While the writer appears like a new comet on my horizon, I am wild to know what this writer will do next. Meanwhile, she will be “graded,” though A+ hardly describes my admiration.” — Emily Herring Wilson, Judge, Penelope Niven Award in Creative Nonfiction The Center for Women Writers, Salem College "McLatchey pens a love letter to her fourth grade teacher, Katherine Arthur Dunning, an extraordinarily gifted and unconventional educator who for years taught in the public schools of North Weymouth, MA . The "beginner's mind" of the book's title describes the innocence and curiosity of young children, which Dunning (whom McLatchey refers to as "Miss D") sought to cultivate. The author vividly describes her dynamic fourth grade classroom, where Miss D focused on big ideas, eliminated labels such as "good" and "bad" to describe students, designated the dictionary as a "sanctuary," and helped hyperkinetic students channel their energy through additional tasks. Interspersed throughout are brief letters from Miss D to the author, charting their enduring relationship over decades. VERDICT Anyone who has been influenced by a beloved teacher will savor this work; educators will especially appreciate it." —Elizabeth Connor, Daniel Lib., The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina, Charleston Library Journal Where to Order: Regal House Publishing Amazon Barnes & Noble Book details: Publisher : Regal House Publishing Language : English Paperback : 230 pages I SBN-10 : 1646030680 ISBN-13 : 978-1646030682 Item Weight : 12.6 ounces Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.58 x 8.5 inches

Index Previous Next 2008 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award - Special Merit 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.

Award Winning Poetry - 2006 Winner of the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award Sanriku The game was not to look - but feel - the slow drag, the distant rise and fall, the quiet revolt of crests gaining an underworld; to know in our heels the moment of their advance: languid, insidious. "Sanriku!" one of us would call - a notice to the rest that it was imminent, and with one lift, a solidarity, we'd throw ourselves beachward, tossing and rolling in a curled force. Submerged, I would hear that call like water's moan, or like the heaving sobs of Asian fishermen, who felt too late the slip of plates, the buckling floor, the little missionary wave passing beneath their boats; who, steeped in so much grief, never knew the clarity that follows every quake -- when there, for just an instant, the contours of the seafloor below are mirrored in the water around our waists. Sanriku is a port in Japan that was destroyed by a tsunami in 1896. Fishermen 20 miles out to sea did not notice the wave pass under their boats because it only had the height at the time of about 15 inches. They were totally unprepared for the devastation that greeted them when they returned to the port of Sanriku - 28,000 people were killed and 170 miles of coastline were destroyed by the wave that had passed under them. Copyright © 2003 M. B. McLatchey All rights reserved. Winner of the 2006 Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award. Published in Willow Springs 58, Fall 2006. Previous Next

Index Previous Next The Peculiar Truth Not much has happened since your last letter. I have read parts of it over again and to very close friends. They have felt obliged to say something as you have. They have been good friends. The postcard is to show you The sun-glazed coast of Salthill. But, of course, it is winter here too. I had not meant to carry on about the fog. Though it rubbed out the channel, probably it had no connection with our way of vanishing. Still, you must know how it is here; scraping beans up from Royal Worcester, how the table is set. My foreigner and I sit adjacent to each other swinging our forks, wishing for something spicy. Eventually we make apologies and slip through slender passageways to breathe easier, to feed on candy, to wrap our arms around ourselves the way this country does it. From my window and everyone else’s there is a beautiful garden which is not ours. From here I imagine you looking wiser than you are as if you knew this and that. . Copyright © 1978 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Grain , May 1985.