I. Marie Reilly's first collection of poems, SAYING SO, originated in the experience of joining a writers' workshop at a local senior center. Commitment to the group marked her transition from East Coast educator to Southwest writer. MOVING MATTERS, the second collection, is an exploration of her experience of moving from a lifetime in New York City to retirement in a small city in the Chihuahuan desert. The work reflects a mature woman's experience of loss and renewal. These largely lyric poems tell of geography and ...
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I. Marie Reilly's first collection of poems, SAYING SO, originated in the experience of joining a writers' workshop at a local senior center. Commitment to the group marked her transition from East Coast educator to Southwest writer. MOVING MATTERS, the second collection, is an exploration of her experience of moving from a lifetime in New York City to retirement in a small city in the Chihuahuan desert. The work reflects a mature woman's experience of loss and renewal. These largely lyric poems tell of geography and transition, loss and memory, and creativity, experienced in fresh local settings. The collection is dedicated to a group of dear friends in New York, colleagues from the early days of teaching, in the 1960's. To this day, a core of the group meets monthly in support and in celebration of friendship. Retired teachers of literature and history, they are also writers, painters, and performance artists; counselors and therapists; world travelers, great-grandmothers and community arts activists. II. Change forges the life of the author, a mature woman: from New York City to a small city in the southwest; from the nearness of close friends and her aging mother; from the site of professional achievement to a new and unfamiliar setting; from the place of her childhood and maturity to the place of her seniority. It is the need for change that forms the basis of the segment titled, 'In Transit/ion." Journey (MOVING MATTERS, 2006) The truth: I wanted things to be as they were, yet no longer able to stay in place I moved away. I wanted things to be as they were- no I didn't- before I moved away. I longed for the long ago, as well as my future. No I didn't-and yes. I was beside myself.No chair was comfortable, no place right. With a desperate wish to be free of the deadly I strode out of town. (Or did I scamper or slink or stagger away?) No chair was right. The harsh, strict, uncompromised truth: I strode out of town no longer willing to sit fixed in place. In 'Then, Now," dislodged and adjusting to new circumstances, the poet is stirred by insistent memory; but a sense of adventure nourishes her, echoing the confidence and hope of the young woman she once was. Late-Day Place (MOVING MATTERS, 2006) Seek shelter in the shade that sun creates today. Regroup. Recuperate. In color and breeze music and chatter and silence love the heat that compels you to thrive anew in relationships. The third segment, titled 'Brooklyn Girl" finds the past delighting and dismaying the poet as it lingers throughout the vivid present. The Roof (MOVING MATTERS, 2006) You want to know how the tarred roof pleased my nose in summer. But it didn't, not then in Brooklyn, in '43. It didn't then, but it does now in memory and on the very roof of a mouth still awash in breakfast. How memories, like dingy garments, whiten and brighten when hung out on a clothesline to the past! It was a long trip up the intricately tiled stairs to the roof atop the fourth floor, past where Mrs. Cahill opened her door to Parcel Post delivery to add another to her apartmentful of unopened boxes; past where Maureen O'Leary cried/screamed/ and tried to please the rulers of her domain; past where the Shelleys pontificated and parented two nuns and a rogue. My 60 year old self has not forgot the traces of tattered garments worn behind lace curtains on the avenues of Brooklyn in '43. Never forgotten but brightened today injoy in a personal era of all where past is whisked away to the present. Fey banners flapping in the wind pinned on the rope/ Can you see the picture? In 'Tribute," the poet lays bare the poignancy of growing into seniority in the presence of a parent of great age. After Noon (SAYING SO, 2001) In the interest of life aging hands, like claws, hang onto independence. Everything depends on it: Life. Breath. Being. When the time comes . when it's your time . when it's your turn, lean on me (though my shoulder be not free) to turn to Death.
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