When I met Merna Dyer Skinner two years ago in an AWP panel on the topic of "Writers Over 60" I was positive of two things. I was certain that the panel would deal in some way with writers who had begun writing later in life, since I had sent in a proposal for that very topic entitled "Late to the Dance, But Can Still Cut the Rug: On becoming an emerging poet later in life." It was not accepted. And the reason it wasn't, I had been told, was because there was a panel that would deal with that issue. There was not. This panel dealt exclusively with writers who had written all of their lives and were now winding down their careers with editors half their age.
Whenever Merna approached me after the panel adjourned, requesting my business card because I had inquired about help for those of us who were the new old poets and writers, I was just as certain about something else: that she was not attending the panel for herself, but rather to take notes for some "older writer," since there was no way she fit the description of a "writer over 60." I'm still certain of that, even though after getting to know her, I've found her to be a terrific emerging poet, with her first chapbook coming out within the next few weeks from Finishing Line Press (hopefully in time to be at their AWP book fair table #1312).
Hear, then, a poem from her forthcoming chapbook:
CATCH AND
RELEASE
Father’s thick
fingers bait our hooks and cast our lines,
sending
shimmying circles across the lake. When
the ripples
smooth to nothing, I sigh, as if with them. I am five.
Dragonflies
helicopter overhead. My line jerks with
my first fish—
too small to keep. Father releases it—it’s mother-of-pearl scales glimmering in the
morning light, cold body undulating deeper until it disappears.
too small to keep. Father releases it—it’s mother-of-pearl scales glimmering in the
morning light, cold body undulating deeper until it disappears.
Shrimp carapace scattered on a white plate. I am twenty-five.
The difference
between the wind in my hair and the wind on the waves—
nothing more
than quarks in motion here or there.
Buttery fingers
wiped on white linen leave the DNA
of ancient
crustaceans. On the table, a splayed
lobster tail,
crab shells sucked
dry and the diamond ring I’ve cast aside.
I slip from the
room while this man who once seemed so alluring
takes a
call. Survival is a question of
instinct, moving this way
rather than
that. Seeing the bait bag for what it is—a test.
As you will discover in her biography, Merna is certainly not new to writing. She is a consummate professional, successfully applying and publishing her communications and consulting skills in the business world for years. She brings the same intelligence, artistry, and aesthetic sensibility to writing poetry and writing about poetry that brought her success in other fields.
Merna
Dyer Skinner is a poet, photographer and essayist, and
offers business communications skills coaching through her company, Satori
Communications, Inc. Her business articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business
Daily, and Success, among others. Her first chapbook, A Brief History of Two Aprons, published
by Finishing Line Press, will be released in late March and may be available at
table 1312 at this year’s AWP conference in Los Angeles.
Merna’s poetry has also
appeared in: MiPOesias, Star 82 Review,
Mojave River Review, Silver Birch Press and Squaw Valley Review. She is currently working on a series of poems
that capture moments and places of stillness in our lives often distracted by
motion and movement. Merna shares her Venice, California home with Sophie, a
golden retriever and her sixth rescue dog.
To contact Merna, visit www.mernadyerskinner.com. And to read reviews of her chapbook, go to: http://bit.ly/1PRAQhd.