Talented Student Poet Receives Grant, Gets Published

Congratulations Kolleen Carney, recipient of the 2010 Summer Artistic Development Grant. Carney used her grant to cover costs related to poem submissions, and it paid off. Her poem, How a Pearl is Formed, was selected as one of ten poems to be part of the Vision/Verse Art and Poetry Exhibit, which will debut in Lake Charles, Lousiana this June. The exhibit pairs poetry with complimentary visual arts pieces from artists and writers across the country. Carney is a Presidential Arts Scholar of Creative Writing, a mother, an active member of local writing groups, and Salem State's representative at last year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Follow her blog at http://www.wordgrrrl.wordpress.com

How a Pearl is Formed by Kolleen Carney

You were conceived in the rare moment my life felt perfect:

the summer sun slivering through the blinds, my hand

tracing the outline of your father's spine.

I believed that you came

from the hollows of his ribs, that the

meaning of the world

hid in those deep

crevices, and I felt safe for a moment--

please realize that I slipped

and let myself feel safe,

forming a crescent against

his dreamless sleeping body.

And like a grain of sand you formed in an oyster shell,

silent at first. And unkowing we played in the sun

under the shadow of a monument, our lips stained

red with hard iced tea and our clothes ripe

with the smell of pot. And you grew.

You grew and you wanted out too soon.

Your father's eyes changed from green to grey;

my mood reflected the moon again, a slivered

waning moon, and I hid in the shadows

and listened to the bells of

Saint Francis De Sales:

your own personal death knell.

I imagine you buried at sea. I think of you

when I see a string of pearls,

knotted tight between each imperfect bead,

and when I walk the streets of your city

I feel your ghost-child hand in mine.