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Index Previous Next Urban Helicon It starts like this: the clamps around my wrists. The little Saturn ring around my head, the wooden chair, the arms still warm, though dead; then the electric thrill, the arch, the twist. The expiation just before the twist, the quick reform of madam in her bed, the spasm, the welcome-wagon for something newly-wed; or the ambulance, the sirens, the sudden lisp. It makes me so serene. It ties me to a rock and sends me swimming. It causes quite a scene to feel the wood and stone become a dock; to hear the pastoral in stillness singing. . Copyright © 1982 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Cold Mountain Review , Spring 2016. Listen to the author's audio version on Cold Mountain Review's website .

Index Previous Next Pushcart Prize Nominee 2020 Best of the Net Nominee 2021 Smiling at the Executioner Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations As if the open barrel were a lotus; its roots anchored in mud. How undeterred by murky water, it submerges and reblooms: petals like crystal glazed and without residue. As if you never felt something move: no welcome and prescient ache, no sudden flexing, no cycle taking shape. No memory. No calendar. No yield – because you are the bullet’s shield. As if you have nothing to lose. As if all that you have learned to love: the beating heart; the mythic glove of a palm blooming in the womb; the scent that follows touch – is suddenly dust. Just the open-grinned, white-toothed stare down this time; the stayed and steady practice on your knees of mastering someone else’s pleas. . Copyright © 2020 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Sky Island Journal , Summer 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee 2020 Best of the Net Nominee 2021 Editor's comment: ...the epitome of what we consider powerful poetry to be. Vivid, palpable imagery saturates the perfect pacing of this svelte, knife-like piece. Full review

Published Poetry Translations: Title Portuguese Journal Author 1 LITTLE BY LITTLE A POUCO E POUCO Ezra Maria Teresa Horta 2 THE LEAVES AS FOLHAS Ezra Maria Teresa Horta 3 THE HAND AND THE WRITING A MÃO E A ESCRITA Ezra Maria Teresa Horta 4 POEM POEMA Springhouse Maria Teresa Horta 5 FROM THE BEGINNING AB INITIO Springhouse Maria Teresa Horta 6 ANTICIPATION ESPERA Springhouse Maria Teresa Horta 7 IDEALIZATION IDEALIZAÇÃO Springhouse Maria Teresa Horta 8 FROM MUTINY TO MUTINY DE MOTIM EM MOTIM Metamorphoses Maria Teresa Horta 9 DELIRIUMS DELÍRIOS Metamorphoses Maria Teresa Horta 10 FURTIVE STEPS TRAÇOS FURTIVOS Metamorphoses Maria Teresa Horta 11 POEM AFTER POEM POEMA A POEMA Metamorphoses Maria Teresa Horta 12 FROM LIBERTY TO LIBERTY DE LIBERDADE EM LIBERDADE Inventory Maria Teresa Horta 13 GREED AVIDEZ Inventory Maria Teresa Horta 14 MY SUSTENANCE MEU ALIMENTO Inventory Maria Teresa Horta 16 THE CONDITION OF THE VERSES DA CONDIÇÃO DOS VERSOS Alchemy Maria Teresa Horta 17 VERSES VERSOS SWWIM Maria Teresa Horta

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 - 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. Previous Next

Award Winning Poetry - 2016 Robert Frost Award Sugaring Sestina for an ill boy A loyal maple lingers by your bed: nature fiercely altered. Its sugar finds your pulse, then trickles in with a rhythm partly boy, partly tree. For comity we call it Mr. Pipes: a way of making peace with hard adjustments. It takes long freezing nights and thawing days to make the sap come like this -- a big run. Drip after drip, each steadier than the last, run through clear lines. I see, now, nothing’s altered that hadn’t already gone awry. Your limbs, thawing in the afternoon sun. The only rhythm -- rations of sap met evenly, at last, with insulin. The hard trek back from a seizure’s arctic grip: whistling pipes, banks of white cotton; a nurse (too cheerful) pipes up: how brave you are, and you’ll be up and run- ning in no time. A promise? Or a wish for her hard- luck kids? One spring, we got behind; buckets overflowed, altered the ground below to a sticky mat that sounded the rhythm of hard luck in thick, slow plops. The whole world thawing like centuries of ice cracking beneath us, thawing the gummy linings of blackened buckets and pipes – dripping with a precision suggestive of a subterranean rhythm. I read, that spring, that scientists can tell if the sap has run up from the roots or down the bark – but, not why its taste is altered year to year. Always the questions we care about that are hard. And “coming to” always the same: that hard expression sweeps over you. Your eyes, half-frozen pools still thawing: late winter, but late in feeling the seasons altered. Your way of banning ceremony, or welcome-horns, or pipes. Your way of taking back the small reserves that run from you each time you lose this fight. Your fitful rhythm yielding to this old-world, pacing rhythm. And knowing where to greet you, here or there, always so hard to gauge. Which is the place of the senses? Where we out-run our fears? You take us there, each thawing day, it seems. Limbs or pipes? We give up these distinctions. Nothing is altered that wasn’t already granted. Nothing is altered that makes us see things hard to see. Some call it god, others just tendrils thawing. Copyright © 2014 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in Naugatuck River Review , Winter/Spring/ 2016. Reprinted with permission from Robert Frost Foundation . Semi-Finalist, Naugatuck River Review's 7th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest Previous Next

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

IDEALIZATION

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.

Index Previous Next Oaths, Curses, Blessings As a girl, I learned to hurl a curse so it would hurt. The skill, not in the words but in the work: bringing the self to feel another's precious losses as though they were one's own. And then, like an informer against the heart, delivering the blows: May you wake without air, without light. May you walk with a league of homeless shadows by your side. Although it was play it frightened me to see a hex take hold in a friend's eye, to see the crushing sorrows one can summon with the mind. Tonight, in the ashen shadows of your room those curses seem to linger like stray dogs reminding me, as the unfortunate always do, of our double lives. Our tendency to come to terms too late. Your breadth, like oatmeal's blooming scent, circles them in a breeze. Above us, light that should comfort: glow -in-the-dark stars careen like clockwork through a black sky. For a lamp: a shuttle that turns unceasingly over a dimly-lit earth. I cover you again, although this August night is still and though it's me that's shaking. With a different girl behind us, this stillness might be our grace. Instead it keeps me here tonight not praying really, but pacing. . Copyright © 2007 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in the Georgetown Review , Spring 2008

Index Previous Next The Breakfast Piece Web of unturned matter smoldering in the yard. A flame in the compost or a molten tongue that starts the dog barking. Abortus tranquillus. Every day now: a before or an after . Or, an endless encore. Born in a long hall under a burnishing moon. Go to your room. Go to your room and stay there. Look at your tongue: tiger stripes up and down – Bearer of sorrow, curl up your muddy locks and worm away. I’m not the one to teach you how to walk. I have been mopping up after you all these days. II. Milk crusting in a cereal bowl. Figs like little death’s- heads left, predictably, untouched. A paper cup berthed in its own spilt pool. A still life of the widespread type – The Breakfast Piece – that, in their rush to school, the boys lightly abandoned. Remnants of a meal or of a life? In all of our formal studies, always the latter. Pieces unexpectedly arranged and surfacing like orphans wanting care. We move as if across an oily canvas to wash them, wash them. . Copyright © 2015 M. B. McLatchey. All rights reserved. Published in The Drunken Boat , Fall 2015.

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