Marion Starling Boyer
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The Sea Was Never Far
Main Street Rag, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59948-737-3
80 pages, $14 (+ shipping)
Praise for The Sea Was Never Far
Marion Starling Boyer’s The Sea was Never Far functions as oral history, dramatic monologue, personal mythology, biography framed by white space, and a novel in verse—but thankfully, it is poetry, salt-tinged and music-lush as the sea. Each poem is an act of lyric ingenuity, offering up a particular voice within the realm of a particular place and time, revived by Boyer’s attention and magic.
- Diane Seuss, poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner
Marion Boyer cannot exist. No one person could give such voice to fishermen, millers, widows, thatchers, herring girls, compass adjustors. An entire community rises from the pages of The Sea Was Never Far, not as pale and whispering ghosts, but as individuals with nicknames and failings and skills and stories that invade your head and become your memories. Whether Marion Boyer is ventriloquist or necromancer or medium, it is certain that she is a poet. - Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Prairie Schooner Book Prize Winner for A Mind Like This.
This extraordinarily original and powerful collection of poems strikes me as nearly flawless. The poet makes wildly inventive use of sound, metaphor, and imagery, and I deeply admire the poet's willingness to take chances in both craft and idea. Furthermore, they are all strong and brilliantly written, but the manuscript holds together richly and convincingly as a whole...these poems made me smile with delight.
--Edwina Trentham, Competition Judge
Composing the Rain
The Clock of the Long Now
IN SMALL CONVERSATIONS
about purchase or soup
people count on plums
or peculiarities of weather
to sand the hardwood
between them with each word.
A woman sells me stamps
wishes me well, and warns
about rain.
I am in her head and now she's in mine.
I imagine the people de-planing
have traveled to see me,
or the ones criss-crossing on escalators,
them going up, me gliding down
are possible loves sweeping by.
There are so many ways
never to know another person.
A man behind the fish counter
wraps paper around salmon
in a crisp way, frowning
over the scale so I know
his concern for me
is whittled down to pampering
the silvered flesh he hands across the glass.
Later, I'll unwrap the package like a gift.
Her Favorite Story
And everyone was quiet
moving to the windows
from their desks and cupboards
or pianos to stand together, watching.
It was the last time
it snowed on earth.
March. I could tell you
all the facts, the finite dimensions
of depth, durations, degrees
but we reached for it falling.
And it fell so slowly, softly
bandaging edges,
each flake particular.
And for a time
we were monkeys
and monks, kicking
through the drifts
or solemn as candles.
It is hard to tell you
of snow. It was
like the ash, but colder.
GREEN
Finishing Line Press 2003
ISBN 1-932755-01-2
32 pages, $12.00 (+ shipping)