Marguerite Keil Flanders

Marguerite Keil Flanders is a member of Ocean State Poets, an outreach group working to encourage poetry in every community in Rhode Island. She is part of an ongoing writing workshop that meets every other Saturday at the Men's Medium Security Prison in Cranston.

Having worked as an environmental advocate in the field of Urban Forestry and served on her town's Conservation Commission, Margie is now putting creativity and imagination at the center of her life.

She plays violin in a small community string orchestra, and loves practicing in her studio, where she can watch the woods breathing from her windows. Her biggest, not so secret, passion is swimming in the ocean, which she does whenever she can, even in cold months with a wetsuit that makes her look like an alien.

Her work has appeared in Boston Review, Yankee Magazine, Nimrod International Journal, Comstock Review, Poetry East, The Main Street Rag and in other literary magazines.

Read Margie's insightful essay that appeared in the OPP April 2013 newsletter, Poetry: The Highway to Humility

( Here is a video recording of Margie's reading at North Kingstown library 4/3/2013 )

► Margie's Origami micro-chapbooks & selected poems are available below.

Microchap		Selected Poems
Long Dark: Poems of an Insomniac
Click title to download microchap Cover Art: Paul Signac Portrait of Félix Fénéon •	Sleep Remedy Gather: the florid promise of bird feathers the underside of violet petals scrapings from cedar bark tangle of distant drumbeats the complexion of a fox glimpse of a kiss & a carnation the darkness from two corners three questions & four grasses silhouette of a sassafras tree glint of mica, reflected in a new dime reduction of high jinx the cheek fur from a chipmunk a pinch of forgiveness and clear water from a stream Mix well and form into lozenges (figure out how to make lozenges next time you can't sleep) Take as needed. Night rolls me up like a crepe, or a carpet, encloses me in its press of nourishment. June shrinks the dark; before I am even ready to doze, light spreads thinly through the woods. My rhythms of wakefulness and laughter defy earth's rounding of the sun. When the moon rises at dawn, I shut my soul's windows, and try, once again, to go under	Dawn For One Who Has Not Slept Spare the dreaming, let night's book remain open. Light tempts me, but I stay under the still hands of darkness, safe and fraught with a new day's threat; the back alley of my into open heart I am sent, trawling for a few new words, or even just one. Open Window Too early, the smell of flirty peonies, the mower blades gnash and scold my dreams, morning flutters in like dirty money, and I turn over. The dogs next door proclaim. I beg, leave me to my licking and gathering of medicine, my surrender. I fall back twice, yanked apart by fangs of sun, until I’ve banished the priesthood of light, and disappeared into the Old Religion of sleep.	Long Dark Last night I forgot to sleep, closed my notebook, traced a labyrinth on the blotter, spilled nothing, broke nothing, did not cry for my mother, though the knot of my navel grows raw and red, as if untying. This morning I wear her rings as if I am an heiress. I knock a vase off the shelf as if I'm not. Her death still makes me unable to lie down, and even the return of light is a gift I'm too ashamed to receive. Mary's Song Night birds steal my sleep snatch it between their chirpings of delight and lust. In this month of lilacs and balmy musings everyone needs a mate or a dream of one. Apple trees scatter confetti over the lonely singers in the branches. The bad news of spring dissipates, arguments let go. The keening of winter has long since been replaced by new longings for joy. So the birds take my dreams, but give me back a poem. We are more than even; here comes dawn, and a new day's music. • Marguerite Keil Flanders © 2013
When Pearl Was Young - Vol. I
Click title to download microchap	DADDY Daddy does magic tricks that make her friends giggle. But he isn't always happy. At the beach he swims straight out, away from Mommy and Pearl on their towels. Will he come back? At six Pearl makes her first book, meticulously cuts and folds little white pages, all empty except the title on the front: How To Be A Grouch. She gives it to her father, knowing how to break his heart. Years later he will give it back to her, knowing how to break hers.	BRAIDS The Junior Choir lines up for the Easter anthem, blue robes, white collars. The mean boy pulls Pearl's ribbons; the silky braids fall free. Her eyes fire with shame at being so disliked, singled out. She doesn't know he just wanted to see how they worked. SNOW ANIMALS On snow days, Pearl and two friends make animals big enough to sit on, pretending to race until their fannies are wet and cold. Her friends make snow horses, but Pearl, only so so about horses, creates a lump, large, beautiful and strong, so it can be anything she wants it to be. And it is always one imaginary nose ahead of their horses.	Mrs. Jackson, 3rd Grade Blue dress, she'll be nice; Red dress, she'll be mean, will glare and speak ice. Her eyes will glint, she'll shame the boy who can't sing on key. Once she made fun of Pearl for mispronouncing determined, told her to repeat it for another teacher. She laughed, the other teacher didn't. Her eyes are stones. When she reads from the black bible, Pearl makes her grow smaller and smaller until she disappears. TWISTED SILVER Pearl finds a ring under the bleachers, Fourth of July night, cherishes it for five days, then loses it in the ocean. No reason to cry: it came like light, left like dark • Marguerite Keil Flanders © 2009
When Pearl Was Young - Vol. II
Click title to download microchap	Pearl's Big Brother 1. On her 3rd birthday, Mommy gives her the plush stuffed Dog. Pearl swoons. So when her brother gives her the crude little creature he made from paper and a clothes pin, she thinks it is a joke, throws it out on the front porch. In the rain. All their eyes say she did wrong. No offense to her brother, but don't they get how Dog is all she ever needed or wanted? 2. Her brother comes home from camp, dark scab on his lip. A boomerang came back at him. Pearl asks "Isn't that the point?"	3. At Buzzard's Bay, he ties a kite to her flipflop, let's go. It sails up and over the dune, skims across water. They drag the boat over rocks into the shallows, jump in, laughing, rowing until the kite drops. They pull it from the waves, and she puts her flipflop back on, so happy to have a brother. Bees Clouds well up during dinner. Pearl fidgets with her fork, can't be contained, slams the screen door behind her, runs uphill to the school, up the grand wide stairs, waving arms at the first splatters of rain with their fruited smell and release. Calm again, and wet, she returns You and the bees home. says Daddy, when she's back Crazy before at the table. . He's right, a storm and she's glad he knows	First Dream Pearl watches as Mommy's car smashes into a chainlinked fence and she breaks her neck. Even Mommy can't convince her it was just a dream. To Pearl, not yet is the same as already. It's like her life started in that dream, and will speed on until it comes to pass. And she knows it will, knows there is no way to keep Mommy safe. • Marguerite Keil Flanders © 2010