Time is a Snake’s Tongue, Poems by MaryAnn L. Miller

The author’s statement:

“How do we sort out and recognize the racism we live with? Where did it start with each of us? I asked my children and other family members to tell me their first encounters with racism.  I also asked friends, mostly agemates, when I realized that this scourge had not changed over our lifetimes, if anything it’s as deadly as ever. I’m eighty-one, I have had many years to observe, ignore, and/or be disgusted by my own experiences and what has become so clear in the daily news, and in the lives of my Black friends. This morning I chose not to watch yet another black man be beaten to death by police. I remember a friend saying: You thought it was going to get better, didn’t you? Time alone doesn’t change anything. It acts as a soporific combined with all our entertainments that blunt the horror and grief.”

Sample Poems by MaryAnn L. Miller

“MaryAnn L. Miller’s talent and fierce wisdom guide this well-crafted collection. She calls out society’s ‘binding and boundary-making’ that foster racism and violence, that limit our freedoms and connections. Through apt images and an artist’s eye, she interrogates aging, time and memory in these wonderful poems.”—Cathleen Cohen, author of Sparks and Disperses

“MaryAnn L. Miller pours out memories ‘like/gold pounded into powder,’ ticking off reflections on time, aging, religion, sex and prejudice with images as diverse as golden ormolu clocks and ‘starlings flying into harp strings.’ Think you can escape this book without getting struck by her poetic ‘ax that shrieks’? Not ‘an ice cube’s chance in hot tea.’”—Vernita Hall, author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color

“MaryAnn L. Miller crafts her words masterfully to freeze moments from the past and present. Each penetrating word and verse of her poetry bear witness to her life’s quiet contradictions and hidden fears. She reminds us of our failures and triumphs that living brings us from the moment we enter this world.”—Curlee Raven Holton, Roth Professor Emeritus of Art  

ISBN 978-1625494375, 44 pages, softcover

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