Fingers of Sunligh

Dear Mary,

Your work and your commitment to living fully in this world have inspired me for over thirty years. I first learned of your poetry, when I was visiting a friend, and she read me “Blossom,”  from your book American Primitive. Until then, I didn’t know poetry could feel so relevant and be so much a part of contemporary life. Reading your work kindled in me a desire to notice more and more about the world around me, and to do my best to deepen my experience by expressing it in shapely language.

Along the way, I discovered your little volume on craft, A Poetry Handbook, and I have attended several of your readings and workshops. Thank you for the warm welcomes you gave me, my twin brother, Dan, and our guide dogs at these events. They still touch me, like fingers of sunlight reaching down through a canopy of trees.

Dave Simpson