2012 DOBLER AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED
Michelle Maher |
Michelle Maher is the winner of the 2012 Patricia Dobler Writing Award, sponsored by the Madwomen in the Attic Creative Writing Workshops and the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program of Carlow University, for her poem, At the Brera, Milan. Her poem distinguished itself from a field of more than 380 poems by 160 poets with its singular, distinct voice and its willingness to risk.
The entries were read by poet Toi Derricotte. Of her poem, Derricotte wrote:
I love the musicality of At the Brera, Milan. Its use of sound patterns, rhyme, both internal and end-rhyme; but, especially, I love the pattern of internal rhyme, for example, there is “breadth” and “chest” in the first line, “face” and “strained” in the second and, in the third line “troubled” and “marbled.” In the next line, there is the first end-rhyme, “rests,” that rhymes with “chest” in the first line, as well as “thrust” in the next. This consistent use of rhyme, and the relaxed but regular rhythm of iambic and anapestic patterns, gives the poem an easy conversational flow, creates drama, and keeps the reader’s focus on each word.
I love the last four lines, which bring the great drama, movement, theatrical noise, and color of the poem, to a sudden stop. We the readers, who have been looking over the writer’s shoulder, now enter the poem to become witnesses, not only of the painting, Christ’s death, and of Mantegna’s funerary chapel, but to become witnesses of our own deaths. The last three words are chilling, “and are still,” as if we find ourselves in the silence of our own tomb.
There are gorgeous mirroring effects throughout—images, which like actual mirrors play off of each other, and infuse the poem with light. The “marble stillness of the corpse” is played against the “marble table.” The “red-veined” table mirrors the red glow in the painting, as well as the veins in the naked corpse. The painting of the corpse of Christ, with its feeling of immensity and grandeur, magnifies the importance of Mantegna’s death.
This is an exceptional poem that’s worthy of being read again and again, each time bringing the pleasure of surprise. It deserves this recognition and a wide readership. Congratulations!
The honorable mentions are Linda Bryant from Nashville, TN, for Ghost Dancing with Music; Linda Malnack from Seahurst, WA, for Hunger; and Michelle Maher from Wexford, PA, for January Birches.”
As winner of the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, Maher will receive round-trip travel and lodging as a participating guest of Carlow’s MFA residency at Carlow University, in Pittsburgh, PA, January 3-13, 2013; publication in Voices from the Attic; and a public reading with judge Toi Derricotte during the residency.
At the Brera, Milan
The breadth of the chest
seems immense, the face strained as if
in troubled sleep, the marble stillness of the corpse
matches the red-veined marble table
on which the body rests.
There is no place else to look, we are thrust
almost atop the body. Its torn flesh,
from which no blood flows, is draped with linen.
Foreshortened legs and tiny feet. Look,
there is a jar of ointment by the pillowed head.
Beyond, an open door leading to a burial room.
The body seems beyond decay with its flowing hair,
smooth, bent arms, and hands loosely curled
into cloth as liquid and still as poured stone.
At the center of the canvas, the bulging drapery
at the loins reminds us this had been a man in his vigor
now stretched on a slab as if poised
to catapult into our midst.
The world to come has not entered here.
A reddish glow covers everything, and even
the weeping figures shunted to the side—
St. John, the Virgin, Mary Magdalene—
aged, ravaged with grief, are incidental
to this Dead Christ Mantegna
painted for his own funerary chapel
which stands before us as if made
for our own, the room of our witness,
which we enter, and are still.
ABOUT THE WINNER
Michelle Maher is a professor of English at La Roche College, a private, Catholic college north of Pittsburgh. She has two Master's degrees and a PhD in English from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her poems have appeared most recently in The Georgetown Review, The Atlantic Review, Pittsburgh City Paper, U.S. 1 Worksheets, and Voices from the Attic. She lives in Wexford, PA, with her husband and three daughters.
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The Patricia Dobler Poetry Award
The annual contest is open to women writers* over the age of 40 who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, currently living in the U.S., who have not published a full-length book of poetry, fiction, or non-fiction. |
For more information, please contact Ellie Wymard, PhD, at 412-578-6346, or Sarah Williams-Devereux at 412-578-6346 or sewilliams412@carlow.edu.
*Current Carlow students or employees are not eligible. |
