Jeanne Marie took the Millay Poetry Challenge and recited one of her favorite Millay sonnets, “And you as well must die, beloved dust.” Her recording, along with those of other participants, is available here, on the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society YouTube Channel and other platforms.
“Good Nothing and Good Night”
Jeanne Marie’s poem “Good Nothing and Good Night” appears in the new anthology A Constellation of Kisses, edited by Diane Lockward (Terrapin Books, 2019).
Asylum Song: A New Play by Jeanne Marie Beaumont
An ensemble of four playing multiple roles, along with a central, emerging puppet, move fluidly in time to depict the story of Anna K., a young Slovakian immigrant, whose fate has been kept secret by her family for eight decades. As her adult granddaughter begins to dig into historical records, she must defy the family code of silence to liberate her grandmother from obscurity and stigma and find a path toward empathic understanding. Focusing on Anna’s final days in a state mental asylum in 1927, this multi-media production presents the heartbreaking reality of being a non-English speaking woman confined to an institution after one traumatic episode. By interweaving stark clinical observations drawn from Anna’s actual case record with a poetic lyrical voice, flesh and blood are conjured back on to the family skeleton. As the mystery of Anna’s life is illuminated, the need to acknowledge sad, difficult truths is met with the capacity to finally love, mourn, and embrace her.
This Business of Words
Jeanne Marie’s essay “The Speaker in This Case: Anne Sexton as Tale-Teller in Transformations” in This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton, edited by Amanda Golden, is now available in paperback. Read a review of This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton from American Literary History.
“Portrait with Closed Eyes”
Jeanne Marie’s poem “Portrait with Closed Eyes” appears as a model poem in the new craft book by Diane Lockward The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics.
Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Writers
Jeanne Marie’s poems “Nurse Accused of Killing Baby” and “The Witch Lies Awake” appear in the new anthology Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Writers, edited by Bertha Rogers and published by Bright Hill Press.
