Marjorie Power
Poet
Peace
goes into the making
of a poet
as flour goes
into the making
of bread.
Poetry is an act
of peace.
PABLO NERUDA
About
At age eight I wrote something amounting to a prose poem. My brother Richard, 19, offered to type it—I still have that piece of paper—and said he thought I might be a born writer. This was a great compliment. He had already earned significant attention for his own writing. A few months later, Richard died in a car accident. But his words had planted a seed.
My first published poem appeared in my mid-20's under the name Marjorie Strauss. Since then I have seen around 500 more published in both print and online journals including POET LORE, BARROW STREET, SOLSTICE LITERARY REVIEW, MUDFISH, EPOCH and ATLANTA REVIEW as well as anthologies, a blog, a calendar and a poster. I have several collections out (see COLLECTIONS) from small presses. I consider myself neither successful nor failed but widely unknown (I wrote a poem with this as a title).
To see reviews of Sufficient Emptiness:
http:/thewideningspell.blogspot.com.
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/03/01/sufficient-emptiness-by-marjorie-power/
A review by Sheryl Luna, winner of the Ernest Sandeen Prize for Poetry, appears in CONCHO RIVER REVIEW, fall/winter 2021.
Collections
Glassy, Sunlit, Wider than You Thought, Shanti Arts, 2026
Sufficient Emptiness, Deerbrook Editions, 2021 - $18.25 - on Amazon
Oncoming Halos, Kelsay Books, 2018 - $17 - on Amazon
Seven Parts Woman, WordTech Editions, 2016 - $16 - on Amazon
Living With It, Wampeter Press, 1983 - look for used books
CHAPBOOKS
Refuses to Suffocate, Blue Lyra Press, Delphi Series volume VII,
2019 - look for used books
Flying on One Wing, Samaritan Health Services, 2006
The Complete Tishku, Lone Willow Press, 2005 - look for used books
Birds on Discovery Island, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2005
-- chapbook contest finalist - look for used books
Faith in the Color Turquoise, Pudding House Publications, 2003
Cave Poems, Lone Willow Press, 1998
Tishku After She Created Men, Lone Willow Press, 1996
Readings
-- Book Launch Benefit Reading at Artisan Church,
1265 South Clinton Ave., Rochester, N.Y. 14620, 1/31/27,
11:45 - 1:45, for Glassy, Sunlit, Wider than You Thought
--with Linda Blaskey, Stephen Lewandowski and Bart
White, Victor Farmington Library, Victor, N.Y., 4/16/26,
6 - 7:30 P.M.
--featured reader for Just Poets at Before Your Quiet Eyes Bookstore, Rochester, N.Y., 3/11/26, 7 PM
-- featured reader at Pittsford, N.Y. YMCA,
9/19/25, 12 - 1 PM
-- featured reader at Ziggie's Zoom, hosted by Julie Cummings, Conifer, Colorado, 10/6/22
-- benefit reading for World Relief WNY and the National Compassion Fund at Community of the Savior, 4 E. Henrietta Rd., Rochester, N.Y., 5/22/22
-- Zoom book launch for Sufficient Emptiness hosted by Blue Marmot Studio in Allenspark, Colorado, 6/12/21.
-- book celebration for Oncoming Halos at the Denver Woman’s Press Club, 1325 Logan St., Denver, CO, 2/9/19
-- read with Christine Weeber at the BookBar, 4280 Tennyson St., Denver, CO, 3/2/19
-- featured reader at Waldport Library, 460 NW Hemlock St., Waldport, OR, 4/8/19
Sample Poems
from Glassy, Sunlit, Wider than You Thought
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
in case the fox appears. Shh.
Let’s wait
by this wide window
and turn
to the blank field, the sparkle
of noon
on just-fallen snow,
the trackless field
edging those gray woods where
the fox might
flare into view, full view, and introduce us to its color.
You may believe
you’ve seen red before but when you
witness
the fox against the snowy field
you learn
you didn’t know what
sleek or radiant meant
or that a tail can be a plume of smoke
or a pile of ash
that’s taken shape,
come alive.
Sleeping Car
In the word roomette
emphasis falls
on the second
syllable. The first
drops altogether
when two elders step in
with luggage. The space becomes
an ette.
An ette
is an engineering feat
of niggling and
steely requirements.
A final arrangement, a this-far-
and-no-farther-and-
don’t-even-think-about-it.
You may remember
how you and your companion
used to bump around
in a pack tent. Even a
small tent forgives much.
Your knees are not soft.
Keep your knees
to yourself.
After a night
on the bottom shelf
you unvelcro
the little curtain. If
you’re lucky, dawn’s broken
over the Potomac
south of DC.
A few tiny boats as you cross,
wintry trees
along the bank. The river –
glassy, sunlit, wider than you thought.
--after an untitled photo by an unnamed photographer
Held in his Lesser Hand
one boot on concrete its partner on brick
a man stands facing a sunlit wall
young but slightly stooped head tilted down
he extends an arm palm open and up
he is probably not left-handed but that’s
the hand he holds out and
open as if in question
as if in hope
clothed in nondescript a man studies his shape
against pale gray stucco within earshot of the sea
slish-slosh goes the morning tide
a promising sound to the man’s lesser hand
which when seen against the wall
dangles the shadow of a fish net
he's lost in thought perhaps in doubt
this fisher of men lover of whomever
we can’t see the actual net which is why we sense
even at this hour on our exhausted earth
the quality of listening
cast by the one who holds it
My Writing Perspective
Fine poetry of any era and style adds to the world’s available beauty. And beauty is essential to the life of mind, body and soul, not to mention our relationships (I use the term broadly).
The best poetry comes from everything that plays into who the poet is. A gift and passion for language, of course. Childhood experiences. Formal education. Dream life and the life of one’s unconscious. Religion/spirituality. Rejected religious experience. Racial and ethnic background. Marriage. Gender. Work. Political convictions. Eroticism. Exposure to literature and art. 24/7 news impact. Social media activity, travel, and any other influences. Beyond all this, there’s the mystery at the core of our identities, something we can never quite account for or pin down.
In the United States we tend to compartmentalize experience – separating the spiritual from the erotic, the political from the personal, etc. – so that we can move forward productively or at least efficiently. We like to feel we are in control. This is something to watch out for when writing poetry. The result can be a poem that feels less than fully alive and fails to reverberate with love. By “love” I mean what the Greeks called agape. Allowing agape to be present when we choose to write about pain, especially any kind of injustice to ourselves or others or both, isn’t easy.
While there are journals that prefer no political poetry, no religious poetry, no erotic poetry, or no something else, I hope that all of who I am is brought to bear in every poem, as I’m sure many do. But our cultural tendency to compartmentalize, which differs from consciously choosing details to use or not use in a poem, is one reason I often delight in poetry from other places. Many foreign cultures don’t seem as attached to separating the personal from the political from the spiritual from….
Contact Marjorie
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