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Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Published in SWWIM , 2020 Prev 17 Next VERSES They’re the verses the twilight they’re the days they’re the seas the saliva the open hand in the back-light at noon they’re the abyssal gestures, the uncertain pain They’re the verbs the secrets the alchemy they’re the sweet lips and their excess the impulses of the gesture where rose up the contour of the body most perverse They’re the voices singular the melodies they’re the rigors of the forms most diverse inventing themselves simply because they prevented an anxious possession so uncertain They’re the syllables intact the utopias the clumsy the past the nightmare dreamt during the dawn the sweat drenching my hair They’re the doubts, possibly the night in the labor of unfettered writing everything that is tactile and internal entwines itself in the thread of dawn Sometimes an even more thirsty gesture surges and then the flight, the stroke of a knife to the voracious side of reflection when love has nothing more to say VERSOS São os versos os crepúsculos são os dias são os mares a saliva a mão aberta na luz de bruços ao meio-dia são os gestos abissais, a dor incerta São os verbos os segredos a alquimia são os doces lábios e o seu excesso os impulsos do gesto onde se erguia o contorno do corpo mais perverso São as vozes singulares as melodias são os rigores das formas mais diversas a inventarem-se só porque impediam uma ansiosa posse tão incerta São as sílabas intactas as utopias o torpe o passado o pesadelo sonhado durante a alvorada o suor alagando o meu cabelo São as dúvidas, possivelmente a noite no labor da escrita desatada tudo aquilo que é táctil e por dentro se enovela no fio da madrugada Por vezes surge ainda um gesto mais sedento e em seguida o voo, o golpe de uma faca no lado voraz do pensamento quando o amor não quer dizer mais nada Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Published in SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami), Septmber 2020. Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis . Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

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.

My Teaching Philosophy In Celtic mythology there is a story of an innkeeper who promises his guests a wonderful night’s sleep if they will stay at his inn, and enjoy his magical bed. When his guests complain that his beds are too short or too long, he assures them that they will grow accustomed to these new accommodations, and he sends them back off to bed. As soon as his guests fall off to sleep, he sneaks into their rooms and—with the fantastic swiftness of many myths—he cuts off their legs or stretches them. “What better way to provide for the perfect fit for his guests?’ he thinks. When we teach the Humanities, we start with the “guest”—the student. As much as we want to show our students the “magic” and liberation, and the growth and self-discovery that the humanities can offer them, we must always remember that what they need from us is not the story of that joy—but the tools for finding it themselves . Rather than promise a good night's sleep—or a life of convictions and fulfillment—we are obligated to model it. We model for our students the passion, the responsibility, and the deliberateness with which we come to our own studies, and we make them colleagues in that journey. In making them colleagues, we learn about their particular interests and goals—and in turn, we become allies in showing them the degree to which their particular goals are part of a complex of other disciplines, other intellectual questions. In other words, we help them to see connections—connections, not just between intellectual questions and disciplines, but also between human beings and each human being’s individual journey. - M. B. McLatchey Copyright © 2009 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved.

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Forthcoming in Inventory , 2020 Prev 13 Next GREED I submit to my greed along the trail of voices and the footprints of books that disrupt my peace I learn each word down to the stem of the rhyme taking pleasure from the hem of my writing skirt in the vertigo of poetry adjusting the verse to the danger Epic and homeless AVIDEZ Eu sigo a minha avidez pelo caminho das vozes e as pegadas dos livros a tirarem o sossego Cada palavra aprendida até à haste da rima tomando o gosto à bainha da saia da minha escrita na vertigem da poesia ajustando o verso ao perigo Epopeia e desabrigo Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Forthcoming in Inventory , Princeton University, 2020. Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis . Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Published in Ezra , Spring 2019 Prev 2 Next THE LEAVES I defoliate the petals the leaves of the poem until I reach perdition desiring the unutterable between the place where one helps the hand that writes and the space where the writing finds shelter AS FOLHAS Desfolho as pétalas as folhas do poema até chegar à perdição desejando o indizível entre o sítio onde se apoia a mão que escreve e o espaço o nó onde a escrita se abriga Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Published in Ezra , Spring 2019. Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis . Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

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

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Forthcoming in Inventory , 2020 Prev 14 Next MY SUSTENANCE The more I write poetry the more I surrender to the loss the more I lose myself the more I find myself I catch a glimpse and despise and discount myself The more I write poetry the more I become enlightened to turn it into my body to summon it in time making it my sustenance MEU ALIMENTO Quanto mais escrevo poesia mais me entrego ao perdimento mais me perco e mais me encontro me desencontro e vislumbro me desacato e desvendo Quanto mais escrevo poesia mais me torno alumbramento a transformá-la em meu corpo a convocá-la no tempo tornando-a meu alimento Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Forthcoming in Inventory , Princeton University, 2020. Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis . Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

Index Previous Next 2012 Rita Dove Poetry Award - Semi Finalist At the Grieving Parents Meeting In the parish hall of Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church, pictures of murdered children in our hands, we huddle in a sphere of folding chairs and a flickering fluorescent light. Some lean near the coffee and coffee cake that, each week, has the same floury smell of sympathy and each week, the same sour taste. By the tissues, a painted soapstone statuette – our patron saint. O, the watches and keys and gloves that appeared at your feet! A ruse that my mother relied on to make me believe that our smallest petitions are heard, that events, with the proper appeals, can be reversed, that almost anything lost can be retrieved. As a girl I chanted your name while I followed the trail: pockets, under the bed, under the sofa cushions, pockets again. Something's lost and can't be found. Please, St. Anthony, look around. When it didn’t turn up, I brought you coiled vines – like the petals I bring to my daughter’s room as if to stir up stale air – and the search would resume. Look at the priestess of talismans I have become: her saint card from First Communion in my purse; lodestones for paperweights at work. For good luck, a horseshoe-shaped necklace under my shirt: the crescent shape of the sacred moon goddess in Peru or the bow of the Blessed Mother’s cradling arm, arch like the threshold of her sacred vulva, twine like the helix of lovers. Look at the virtuoso that was finally birthed, who would use this ring of linked hands not for fellowship or grace, not to make my peace on earth, not to lay my gifts at your feet and give up the search, but to summon the face she petitioned and conjure a curse. . Copyright © 2011 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. 2012 Rita Dove Poetry Award - Semi Finalist Published in River Styx 87, Spring 2012.

Selected Poems of Maria Teresa Horta Translated by: M.B. McLatchey and Edite Cunhã Forthcoming in Inventory , 2020 Prev 12 Next FROM LIBERTY TO LIBERTY Beauty by beauty poetry is made, stone by stone of light, image after image, in search of a rebellious language, to crush the loneliness and surrender. Barb, thorn, and wood, but also jubilation and rejoicing. Nothing impossible to our imagination, in poems restless and brilliant where the panther runs along verses and dreams. Disobedience by disobedience poetry is made. Wing and winged flight, until it becomes a rose of greater scintillation, to name creativity, the foundation of writing, in search of suicide comets and constellations in the work of the poem. Sirius and Cassiopeia. Oh, our language constructed with the rigors of unique words, uprising and insurrection. Enchantment by enchantment poetry is made. Navigation of verses to bring down frontiers rejecting blind obedience, and prohibitions, at times of darkenings and deceptions. To refuse principles of imposed acceptance and ruins, from which the dictators watch us, the wolves of cruelty, the censors and the concealed inquisitors, of the Apocalypse. Rebellion by rebellion poetry is made. Fighting darkness and dagger of insidiousness, tricks, handcuffs. With song, with odes and hymns of rebellious verse, armed with our poet’s words, sunset and sunrise. Fiery flight and contempt. Body by body poetry is made, in its unfathomable work of syllables and images, metaphors and rhymes, tumultuous and untiring heart, to fight the dark voices at the head of the bed. Grain and grape of clarity to save us, because poetry redeems but does not appease. Because poetry saves, but does not tranquilize. Dream by dream poetry is made, from utopia to utopia, equality to equality, by laying the poem on the table, on the bedsheet, on the knee, on the stubborn skin of the wrist. Our biggest weapon of liberty by and large. DE LIBERDADE EM LIBERDADE Beleza a beleza constrói-se a poesia, pedra a pedra de luz, imagem a imagem, na busca da linguagem indócil, a quebrar a solidão e a entrega. Farpa, espinho e lenho, mas também júbilo e regozijo. Nada é impossível ao nosso imaginário, em poemas inquietos e fulgentes por onde a pantera corre ao longo de versos e sonhos. Desobediência a desobediência constrói-se a poesia. Asa e voo voado, até se tornar rosa de cintilação maior, a nomearmos a criatividade, a fundação das escritas, em busca dos cometas suicidas e das constelações, no labor do poema. Sirius e Cassiopeia. Oh, a nossa língua construída com os rigores das palavras únicas, sublevadas e insurrectas. Deslumbramento a deslumbramento constrói-se a poesia. Navegação de versos a derrubar frontei- ras, negando-se às obediências cegas e às interdições, aos tempos de assombramentos e obscurantismos. A recusar princípios de aceite imposto e ruínas, de onde nos espreitam os ditadores, os lobos da crueldade, os censores e os inquisidores embuçados, do Apocalipse. Insubmissão a insubmissão constrói-se a poesia. A combater a escuridade e o punhal da insídia, as mordaças, as algemas. Com o canto, com as odes e os hinos de versos revoltosos, armados com as nossas palavras de poeta, poente e alva. Voo ardente e desacato. Corpo a corpo constrói-se a poesia, no seu insondável trabalho de sílabas e imagens, metáforas e rimas, coração tumultuado e incansável, a combater as vozes obscuras, à cabeceira da lonjura. Grão e bago de claridade de nos salvar, porque a poesia redime mas não apazigua. Porque a poesia salva, mas não aquieta. Sonho a sonho constrói-se a poesia, de utopia em utopia, de igualdade em igualdade, a deitar-se o poema na mesa, no lençol, no joelho, na pele ensimesmada do pulso. Nossa arma maior de liberdade em liberdade. Poem celebrating World Poetry Day 2013, done by the Directorate of the SPA. and set out on 21 March of that year in the Belém Cultural Center by initiative of the then president. Vasco Graça Moura . Copyright © 2019 M. B. McLatchey & Edite Cunha, with permission. All rights reserved. Forthcoming in Inventory , Princeton University, 2020 Poema comemorativo do Dia Mundial da Poesia de 2013, feito a coiwitc da Direcção da SPA. e exposto em 21 de Março desse ano no Centro Cultural de Belém por iniciativa do então presidente. Vasco Graça Moura Copyright © 2017 Maria Teresa Horta, from her collection Poesis. Dom Quixote Publisher, Lisbon. Back to List

Index Previous Next Winner of the 2007 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors' Prize The Rape of Chryssipus ''She came home bone by bone. First her shin bone, then her skull. In the end, 26 of Molly's bones came home to us." ― Mother of 16-year old Molly Bish, whose remains were found 3 years after she was abducted and murdered in June 2000. For the rape of Chryssipus, King Laius suffered. The gods saw what he took -- a young boy's chance to play in the Nemean Games, to make his offerings to Zeus, to win his wreath of wild celery leaves, advance the Greek way: piety, honor, and strength. He raided their vast heaven, not just a small boy's frame. Their justice was what Laius came to dread: a son that would take his mother to bed, a champion of the gods, an Oedipus. We called on the same gods on your behalf, asked for their twisted best: disease like a Chimera to eat your Laius piece by piece; a Harpie who might wrap her tongue around his neck and play his game of breathing and not-breathing that he made you play; Medusa's curse in stone; and a Golden Ram to put you back together bone by bone. . Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey All rights reserved. Winner of the 2007 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors' Prize. Published in The Spoon River Poetry Review , Summer/Fall 2007. Judge's Review

Advantages of Believing by M. B. McLatchey 2014 FLP Open Chapbook Prize Winner - Finishing Line Press Publisher: Finishing Line Press M. B. has a real sense of the exuberance and playfulness of language … .This is not to deny the essential seriousness of some of her poems, but to praise them first as poetry, as investigations in the medium. – Lawrence Raab, author of The History of Forgetting The verses in this collection chronicle an earlier time in the author’s life as well as an earlier – and in some ways, foundational – poetic. A poetic, as E.E. Cummings suggests, that is more a way of seeing things than saying things. While the settings for the poems shift between continents – America, England, and France – the perspective, the way of seeing things, is undeniably that of the foreigner, the tourist, the disoriented – and yet somehow stewarded – young scholar. Whatever merit the poems present reflects the good guidance of the author’s former teacher and poet, Lawrence Raab. Published here for the first time as part of the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition, these poems hold true to Yeats’ observation that a poet’s life is measured out, inevitably, in verses. – M. B. Cover art: Isis Olivier http://isisolivier.com

Index Previous Next Snow Globe La Tour Eiffel. An April-snow like pollen covers a patch of stolid tulips. From the first platform, he leans over slick railings, leans as if in Keats’s scheme to drop and drop a red corsage to a woman below. I see it now: this is the one of 300 steel workers, who tumbled to his death clowning around. Her promise is to keep him from his fall by gazing back – his sentinel, his figurine against the filmy wash of elements against the fading colors in a dome. I shake it – not for snow – but to marvel at their hold. . Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Cider Press Review , Vol. 9, Spring 2008.