Sketch

Miriam writes:
"Sketch" is just that—images of transformation that I was tracking imaginatively. The last stanza is about my niece, who as a small child shrieked in terror at dust motes. So much of perception—child's or poet's—is slant, out of the corner of the eye. I wanted to track some of that in the poem.

Miriam Sagan is the author of more than twenty books, including Searching for a Mustard Seed: A Young Widow's Unconventional Story (memoir, Quality Words in Print, 2004; Winner Best Memoir from Independent Publishers, 2004), Rag Trade (poetry, La Alameda, 2004), The Widow's Coat (poetry, Ahsahta Pres, 1999), The Art of Love (poetry, La Alameda Press, 1994), Coastal Lives (fiction, Center Press, 1991), and Unbroken Line: Writing in the Lineage of Poetry (nonfiction, Sherman Asher, 1999), which Robert Creeley called "A work of quiet compassion and great heart." With Sharon Niederman, Miriam is the editor of New Mexico Poetry Renaissance (Red Crane, 1994; Winner of the Border Regional Library Association Award and Honorable Mention, Benjamin Franklin Award), and with Joan Logghe of Another Desert: The Jewish Poetry of New Mexico (Sherman Asher, 1998). She and her late husband Robert Winson wrote Dirty Laundry: 100 Days in a Zen Monastery, a joint diary (La Alameda, 1997; New World Library, 1999). Her work has appeared internationally in two hundred magazines. She writes book columns for the Santa Fe New Mexican and New Mexico Magazine, and a poetry column for Writer's Digest. Miriam directs the creative writing program at the Santa Fe Community College, and has taught at the College of Santa Fe, University of New Mexico, Taos Institute of the Arts, Aspen Writer's Conference, around the country, and online. She has held residency grants at Yaddo and MacDowell, and is the recipient of a grant from The Barbara Deming Foundation/Money for Women and a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency. Miriam can be reached via email at: MSagan1035@aol.com.