The Poetry of Margaret Morley

Maggie Morley was a poet from childhood, nurtured by parents who enjoyed words and language (her dad a reporter, her mother a librarian). She quietly honed her poetry skills, publishing in many poetry journals in California and editing Poettalk Magazine. In this collection of her poems, one can find quiet explorations of times of loneliness, of love, of hope, of grief. She also has poems reflecting on world events (9/11, the Iraq war, Christmas); clever wordplay; and takes on figures from history, literature, and art (Derrida, LaTrec, Howard Dean, Lenin). Her delightful sense of humor is evident in many poems, including one regarding her relationship with a gender-fluid goldfish. She has poems with classic forms (sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, pantoums, ghazals, Lục bát, haibun, double dactyls) as well as free verse. Her love and attention to the value and beauty of the unappreciated, simple, or humble one is a recurrent theme.