Spotlight: Anna Donovan

Hi All

It's an awesome day to present the work of someone I find highly talented. I am honored to share with you, on this page and on my website, the poetry of Anna Donovan.

Anna is among my favorite poets - and for very good reason. Her poems are consistently outstanding - with vivid imagery and expert word choices. I've been following Anna's work for several months and continue to be amazed by her writing.

Anna in her own words:

I've been on a quest for beauty, meaning, sound, feel, and weight of words since I was very young. My grandmother introduced us to poetry and encouraged us to memorize poems we loved, and to express ourselves in words. She always asked, "What's going on with your heart?" I aim to answer that question daily.

I'm excited to share 3 poems by Anna Donovan here - and know you'll love them as much as I do! ______________

Before her Canvas

A wan colorless child/woman, a rosebud stunted and haunted in the sign of the cross, warding off evil, her bloom and smile in the shadow of the Wall.

The lacking inventory of innocense stolen in a most violent way, taken twice and chance escapes, on to a new life, gone father, absent mother, left behind.

A tearless face, the depth of pain behind a porous dam, and a large rattler uncoils from an eye socket, fangs bared, a look intent on striking.

In an endless night, the den of rattle snakes in her arid desert, ominous buzzing sound magnified in hundreds.

The crossing, riding the sun spine of the scrap metal beast, shoulder to shoulder with thirst and hunger, the den remains on a trail of bones, dictates a careful journey in the land of promise, fear on the back burner, to be arrested, to be deported, transported back to perpetual nightmares.

How to earn the trust of the broken? the green Monarch butterflies on my door speak of freedom and resilience.

May I be a sister, a mother, a helper, a connection of green hope, stubborn like the tropics.

Anna ~ 3/14/22 ______________

The Wounded Deer

You and I, ever parting, ever meeting in an endless night where eyes go down and the lids shut.

I, in the broken forest of my body, you, in your droopy eyed lightning sky.

I, the deer in the crossing, impaled by a trolley's shadow now encased in agony and metal rods.

You, the fleshy mouthed bullfrog daydreaming of undressing cattails and weaving them into mattresses and pillows to toss the female form, dusky or light, sultry or shy, your blood in surging flow to the axis line.

We are the last flower in bloom, the hollowed space sometimes sacred in the infinite motion of deflection and the bound complicity of turbulent souls.

Cover my naked bleeding body in gold dust, one last flare in pyre whispers and the chant of "icelti" hands in drum and rattle, alone in the eagle's song.

Anna ~ 1/25/22 ______________

Vinyl

They say it's your nature, to seed chrysalis, soft butterflies to kiss the poem, the silk found wings, the lost oracle stirring days, pale the words of open bloom.

Chalice of grace texture a bed of flowers, footsteps on a firmament sphere of your world, your care brings closer.

Swath of stars, each with their own shine, fitting in the hollow of eternal hands.

To weigh, to taste, to listen to in the silence of sidereal night, carved on black vinyl lines on skin, obsidian charcoal hums.

Anna ~ 9/12/21