Publications
Clear Eye Tea
Published by Cervena Barva Press, October 2010
Praise
"Mary Bonina's Clear Eye Tea celebrates the everyday events in our lives: a father returning from work; family members grown frail; a girl weeping on the train. And yet in her hands, the daily has a miraculous tinge. The sharp vision she was praised for as a child, when she was called 'the one with good eyes' who could spot the 'tiny spider floating/in the cup of wine' has developed into a kind of x-ray that illunminates the secrets, the motivations, and the bare bones inside our common gestures. I closed this book with a feeling of more than happiness, something very close to joy, and I can think of no greater praise."
--John Skoyles,
Poetry Editor, Ploughshares, author of The Situation
"Here is poetry that does what the title of this book suggests: it gives us a careful steeping in the real, and shows us also how hard it is to stay in emotional touch with it. Here is childhood, for example, seen as if one has finally found a way to open a door on what it was really like. Here also is mortal dread and loss, each embraced without flinching, and here too is praise for gentleness and love, neither any less real than the suffering they are interwoven with. Here then is the 'clear eye tea' of Mary Bonina's poetry."
--Fred Marchant
author of The Looking House
"Mary Bonina's poems, written with a strong, authentic voice and a compass-eyed gaze, balance between presence and absence: dirty plastic pretend ivory thing ('Shop of Small Pleasures'); You will hear, too, the dove/its awful sad cry, because/in the rainforest even the sadness/of a dove has more msucle. ('Sorcery'), and between whole and fractured lives: What on earth were they doing with the gun?/They were friends and it was an accident ('Shrine in Cambridge'). Line by line these poems breathe, and it is in this breath the reader's imagination shares the gifts of revelation, reconciliation, and ultimately, grace."
--Dzvinia Orlowsky
author of Convertible Night/Flurry of Stars
How to Purchase
Living Proof
Published by Cervena Barva Press, 2007
Description
"These are poems concerned with the primary relationships of our lives -- family, friends, lovers, nature -- and in them, there is always the larger world rattling around. This volume of narratives, lyrics, dialogues, and found poems demonstrates Bonina's accomplishment and range. Here is an assured voice imbued with musicality, surprising us in the simple way it offers up deeper meaning, often using imagery drawn from the everyday."
Reviews
Mary Bonina’s Living Proof is a hefty 45 pages and worth every drop of ink Červená Barva Press shelled out to bring it into the world.
Each poem reads like a miniature story, stabbing at the heart of memory and nostalgia, capturing lifetimes in a single moment or turn of phrase..."
--Jen Garfield,
editor Prick of the Spindle
"...the voice of these poems knows death, luck, the mall, the hard edges of place, New England places, the violence of the world. It runs very concretely and in many poems, past what its bearer sees as if standing still in deep attention. It is written so that "he who runs may read" but turns entirely inside out the terms and assumptions of that old insult. What a place this human world would be if we all ran at Mary Bonina's speed, what Flannery O'Connor once called the terrible speed of mercy."
--Mary Baine Campbellauthor of TROUBLE (poems),
Carnegie Mellon University Press,
and The World, The Flesh, and Angels (poems),
Beacon Press
How to Purchase
- Online at theLostBookshelf.com(scroll down to Mary Bonina, Living Proof)
- Historic Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square
Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo
Description
This is an anthology to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. "It contains over sixty previously published poems by VCCA fellows, all written about or inspired by their residencies [at VCCA]."
Featured Poem: "Lines Inspired by a Horse"
How to Buy
Vacations: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Selected by Robert Olen Butler
Description
"All kinds of vacations-from Roman holidays to rejuvenating, though sometimes brief, encounters- to make you smile, laugh out loud, and occasionally even shudder. This is an anthology of vacation short fiction, essays, and poetry from acclaimed authors."
Featured Poem: "Afternoon at Nahant"
How to Buy
City River of Voices
Description
"We hear a wide range of voices...In all cases, the intimacy of the poets with their subjects, their intensity, their wide range of emotions reminded me that we cannot separate ourselves from our environment, or from each other, or from our urgent, human need for expression.” Edited by Denise Bergman.
Featured poems: "Practicum" and "Lunch in Chinatown"
How to Buy
Zingology: The Power Issue
Description
“This issue is dedicated to power, its use and abuse. This premier issue is paperback features artists, photographers, and writers in the fall 2008 of zingoloy.com, a literary e-zine.”
Featured Excerpt: "Inheritance" from My Father's Eyes: a Memoir.
How to Buy
Off The Coast of Maine
Description
"Hart's Neck" is a featured poem in volume 12, number 2 (not available for purchase)
Off The Coast Online
Salamander
Description
“Salamander combines the best new work by writers now reaching artistic maturity with exciting new work by established writers.” It is a journal published by the Suffolk University English Department.
Featured Poems: “Sheep Shack”- volume 14, number 2. “All Souls”- volume 16, number 1
How to Buy
Voices of the City
Description
“A collection of vibrant poems that take the pulse of the modern city in all its joy and despair, its yearning and celebration. Organized by the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University Newark, in conjunction with Hanging Loose Press, this anthology features work from some of the country&s best-known writers side by side with prize-winning poems by talented teenagers.” Edited by Rosamond S. King, Charles Russell, Marie Carter, and Robert Hershon.
Featured Poems: "Drift" and "Examples"
How to Buy
Hanging Loose Press
Description
“The magazine was first published in 1966, the name inspired by the format- mimeographed loose pages in a cover envelope. Effective with the 25th issue, to the relief of many libraries and bookstores, the editors decided the loose page format had served its purpose and revamped the format of the publications, the number of pages began to grow, and the magazine was bound. The new format included fiction, and each issue features portfolios of work by a single artist or photographer. Hanging loose has published first books by Sherman Alexi, Kimiko Hahn, D. Nurkse, and many others.”
Featured works: "Dialogues with Mum" and "Age Ten: Sidekick," chapters from My Father's Eyes: a Memoir. Also, "English Lesson Plan: Present Perfect" and "Examples."
How to Buy
- Hanging Loose
(Look up "B," for Bonina, to see all featured works and which Hanging Loose issues they are published in.)