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THE A Therapy Dialogue Lee Miriam Whitman-Raymond |
Lee Miriam Whitman-Raymond received her Master's degree in Creative Writing from Brown University in 1985, where she was also a University Fellow and where she won the University Prize from the Academy of American Poets. |
| In 1991 she won a scholarship to attend the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, studying with Galway Kinnell, Lucilee Clifton, Sharon Olds, and C.K. Williams. She was awarded second prize from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts in 1990 and was a finalist in this competition in 1987, 1989, and 1991. She has been published in The Worcester Magazine, Northeast Journal, Sandscript, Sojourner, and numerous other magazines, and has taught poetry, literature, and social work courses at Brown, Rhode Island College, Providence College, and Dean College, and in adult education programs. She is currently a doctoral student at Simmons College, works as a social worker and lives in southern Massachusetts, where she and her husband, also a social worker, are raising their two daughters. |
* a few selections from this chapbook:
Early today
so I'm out in the woods behind his house,
Weird not to hear the wheeze
of cars and the sirens
to do my screaming for me.
Pine trees loom like crazy phone poles
over my head, while the sun is big
and red as a drop of blood
coming up over his roof.
Haven't seen this much grass
since before Dad left, since before
Depot Street. How does he stand
the silence?
Tidal wave
blowing in from the east
but the wave was made of snow.
I had no choice, lay down to wait
until a shadow against my lids
made me open my eyes again.
You stood above me, your face
in darkness, mysterious. Two wings
opened out from your backbone,
enfolded me. Warm.
Drunk with the smell of roses.
Later you dropped me on the grass
where I sat, watched you stroll away,
your wings folded against your back,
your face pointing north.
M'aura
okay, a breeze tonight
of sorts, but not
Zephyr's cooling breath, hell
no,
a hot wind
slaps along my chest, my
arms:
I lie empty-hearted
in this dark suburb
listening to the peppers nattering
like wind-up toys in the vegetable
silence,
turn and turn
I know you're awake now
---you hate the heat---
in your two rooms overlooking
the main drag, in the dark, stabbing
butts into a can of soda,
staring into the yellow sky
while trucks clank past your window