Poetry Editor

Dorian Brooks wrote the two poems “Thalassa” and “Poetry Editor” in memory of her friend and fellow poet Mary Rice, who died in 2011. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Rice was an essayist and videographer as well as a poet; her poems, articles, and reviews were published in several magazines, including Ms. and Sojourner.  A feminist and proud graduate of all-women Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, USA, she also held a master's degree in art history from Boston University.  She was an editor of the feminist magazine Second Wave, and later, poetry editor of Ibbetson Street, a poetry journal published in Somerville, MA.  Both "Thalassa" and "Poetry Edotor" were published in Ibbetson Street. Dorian also edited Mary Rice’s uncompleted poetry manuscript together with additional poems and arranged for their publication as Angels and Anarchists (Cambridge, MA: Shepard St. Press, 2014).

    Poetry Editor

     for Mary Rice

After you finish
seeing your doctor,
we meet downstairs

in the café so you can
show me some poems
you might accept for

the next issue.  Slow
to decide, you explain
you like to take your time,

hoping for exceptional
work.  We sip tea
as I read and offer

my thoughts.  Months later
you call from the hospital
to say in a low voice

they’ve done everything
they can, and now 
you’re going home to die.

Today, I sit
alone in the café,
missing your insights

and your laughter,
the way you always
knew what you really

wanted and what 
you weren’t yet ready
to accept.

            —Dorian Brooks © 2012