Rose McLarney in Connotation Press

An interview with and new poems by alumna Rose McLarney (poetry, ’10) appears online in Connotation Press.

Interviewer John Hoppenthaler: Rose, first let me say congratulations! Your next book of poetry, Its Day Being Gone, won the National Poetry Series award and will be published by Penguin in spring 2014. What can you tell us about the process? How did you learn of your book’s selection? What were/are your thoughts about this big step ahead?

Thank you. I so appreciated winning a contest in which submissions were judged anonymously because it let me be sure that it was the writing all on its own, regardless of any qualification or connection, that earned the attention.

I received the phone call letting me know I’d won while in line in the library, between teaching classes. I didn’t know what to do other than go on and lead my next workshop, which I’m sure I did distractedly. I was too surprised to say anything for the rest of the day, and that ended up being good practice because I had to wait many months before the official award announcement came out. In the meantime, I did collect myself to tell close friends—and buy some Scotch.

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Continue reading interview online.

Six poems, including “What the Snake Says,” “My Gift,” “How to See,” “The Treatment was Frogs, or The Tradition was Honey,” “Conservators,” and “Glossing the Image,” also appear in Connotation Press.

What the Snake Says

So inelegant, your arms and legs,

that wrapped around the one you loved.

It seems they still pretend to.

At least, it doesn’t look like limbs help much,

seeing you scrabble up proud mountains, thrash

through old brush.

That’s what the snake says, gliding over the ground

or climbing an oak with the same sleek movement,

nothing attached, her body a clean line.

Continue reading online.

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