As she grows older
she departs with greater ease.

Perhaps even allure.





She has nothing to say.
She simply touches herself
and watches herself
and wants





While whole phrases pass by and she accepts them
and she constantly faces great danger
still the body she remembered
but there was something she had never seen.





Fine; even if sad
since until now it has never ceased being
leaning over her body
and breathing with voices.

Then she is alone;
she trusts no one when she says
I caress my body
I caress my awkward body.

Not that it matters;
she hardly minds
because she dreamt herself lying down
a golden deer in the valley.
from the book HERS / World Poetry Books
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During the dictatorship (1967–74), Maria Laina and a group of other young poets spearheaded a new kind of elliptical poetry that grappled with the confusion and censorship of the times by imagining alternative sexualities. In the context of experimentalists of the previous postwar generation (Kiki Dimoula, Miltos Sachtouris, Eleni Vakalo) as well as her own contemporaries who view the white space as “a room of her own” (Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Rhea Galanaki, Jenny Mastoraki), Laina stands out for her autoerotic aesthetic.

Karen Van Dyck on "Hers" (excerpt)
"Archival Romance: On Finding Love in the Papers of an Obscure Medieval Poet"

“A quixotic longing underlies these books. Characters may have special access to collections and libraries, but the pursuit of history is nonetheless ingrained with a gnawing sense of loss....Historical research is always a kind of heartbreak; the more I learn about Gower’s works and life, the more I nurse a yearning for all I’ll never understand." 

via LITERARY HUB
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Kerry Folan on A Community Poetry Reading in Response to Violence

"I try to stay tuned in to the conversations happening around me, and to create literary events that respond. Like the rest of the world, the Eastern Shore has been seeing the images of violence and reports of destruction of the past several months. I wanted to offer a meaningful and respectful way to bear witness to this suffering, and believe poetry can help us in this moment."
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