Poetry 180

February 4th, 2012

As former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins states on this site, “Poetry can and should be an important part of our daily lives.” To that end, Collins created Poetry 180 to provide high schools with one poem a day for 180 days. http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

Landslide

September 14th, 2011

Salvaging wreckage
Dipping into debris
A life focused forward
Just now returning back

For things buried before
Blessings securely there
Safely awaiting a future

Promises still unspoken
And a world to behold
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Summertime

July 7th, 2011

Thunderstorms rumble
Breaking across the sky in fire
Drenching souls in thirst
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Humidity (my first haiku)

July 2nd, 2011

In summertime mist
The lake disappears again
And but air appears

Raw new poem (aren’t they all): Labels

June 1st, 2011

So organized

Everything in place
Things have a moment
They have a space

Memorizing the emotion
Encapsulated
And we can’t let go

Emancipated

As if we could
Let go of those things
- Mary O Fumento, 2011

On the Cusp

May 19th, 2011

On the cusp
Of becoming real
The Velveteen Rabbit
Couldn’t improve

The feeling, the hurt
All that was true

And the loss
Emptiness, of course
That only a simple rabbit
Could feel
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Rummager

April 24th, 2011

We shed skins like snakes
And dig like squirrels to find
Any hidden identity…
We rummage as if we lost
What might have mattered most
Although it was deep inside
All along
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Beyond Bounds

April 23rd, 2011

The places we go
The people we know
Outlive what we think
For life is as it is
Lovely, available
Only we put bounds
On what we might be
Look outside and see
The majesty of those who are
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

The Beckoning

February 23rd, 2011

Shadows on sidewalks
Branches that beckon
Inverting the sky
With a force of reckon
For low can be high
And high can be low
Depending on perspective
And which way to go
So listen to the shadows
And directions they give
An alternative destination
And a new way to live
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Colm Tóibín, Winner of the Irish Pen Award

February 18th, 2011

“It’s good to read Tóibín’s novels,” writes the Los Angeles Times, “in which human beings fail to forgive, fail to understand. We spend to much of our lives in the dark, shouldn’t literature face this as squarely as we must?”

Read Colm