Regina Murray Brault
2008 Creekwalker Poetry Prize Winner
Regina Murray Brault has held memberships in: Poetry Society of Vermont, League of Vermont Writers, New England Writers, Vermont Poets’ Association, National Federation of State Poetry Societies and National League of American Pen Women. She was nominated by League of Vermont Writer’s for Conference and Festivals National Scholarship Award for Poetry 1994, and admitted to The Writer’s Voice Master Class for Emerging Writers taught by Professor John Engels, Saint Michael’s College in 1997. She also attended advanced poetry workshops at Norwich University, Vermont College, University of Vermont, South Burlington High School and Fletcher Free Library. Regina received her Diploma in the Arts from Burlington College in 1997. She served as Editor of The Mountain Troubadour 1977-1983. Her first illustrated book of poetry titled, Beneath the Skin, was released in October 2007.
Ms. Brault has judged the WCAX T.V. Vermont High School Poetry Contests as well as Poetry Society of Vermont Contests at a local level. Nationally and internationally, she judged the Ina Coolbrith Circle 1998 Poetry Competition – San Francisco, California, Jessee Poets December 1998 National Poetry Competition, Poetry Organization for Women International Competition 1980 and 1982, and Poets of the Vineyard International Competitions, among others. She has also served as critic for the League of Vermont Writers, and in 1999 and 2003 for the Poetry Society of Vermont.
She is the recipient of over 400 local, state, national and international poetry awards. Her poem, Birds of Passage, which received the 1997 Grand Prize in the International Dancing Poetry Festival Competition, was choreographed, costumed, set to music, danced and premiered for the public at the 1997 Dancing Poetry Festival in San Francisco at Lincoln University. It was videotaped for broadcast on cable TV. in October 1997. Her poem, Timesweep Cantata was a finalist in the 1997 Atlanta Review poetry competition, and her chapbook, After the Ark, was a finalist in the 1998 ByLine Magazine poetry chapbook competition.
Her poetry has also appeared more than 200 times in 85 different publications including: Hartford Courant, Comstock Review, Grandmother Earth, Karamu, Northwoods Journal, Silver Quill, The Mennonite, ByLine Magazine, Anthology of New England Writers, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, Crucible, Lyric, Midwest Poetry Review, Poet Magazine, Sacred Stones, State Street Review, and June Cotner’s Random House Anthology, Mothers and Daughters.
Ms. Brault has judged the WCAX T.V. Vermont High School Poetry Contests as well as Poetry Society of Vermont Contests at a local level. Nationally and internationally, she judged the Ina Coolbrith Circle 1998 Poetry Competition – San Francisco, California, Jessee Poets December 1998 National Poetry Competition, Poetry Organization for Women International Competition 1980 and 1982, and Poets of the Vineyard International Competitions, among others. She has also served as critic for the League of Vermont Writers, and in 1999 and 2003 for the Poetry Society of Vermont.
She is the recipient of over 400 local, state, national and international poetry awards. Her poem, Birds of Passage, which received the 1997 Grand Prize in the International Dancing Poetry Festival Competition, was choreographed, costumed, set to music, danced and premiered for the public at the 1997 Dancing Poetry Festival in San Francisco at Lincoln University. It was videotaped for broadcast on cable TV. in October 1997. Her poem, Timesweep Cantata was a finalist in the 1997 Atlanta Review poetry competition, and her chapbook, After the Ark, was a finalist in the 1998 ByLine Magazine poetry chapbook competition.
Her poetry has also appeared more than 200 times in 85 different publications including: Hartford Courant, Comstock Review, Grandmother Earth, Karamu, Northwoods Journal, Silver Quill, The Mennonite, ByLine Magazine, Anthology of New England Writers, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, Crucible, Lyric, Midwest Poetry Review, Poet Magazine, Sacred Stones, State Street Review, and June Cotner’s Random House Anthology, Mothers and Daughters.
THE LAST PAGE
When Annie’s bones could no longer
hold her body erect,
Walter carried their bed downstairs
near the window that overlooked the brook,
then slipped her softly between the sheets.
He opened Volume A of their encyclopedias
and they talked about aardvarks,
he leading the way with text,
she was whispering questions,
both pausing to watch the red fox
quenching his thirst at sundown.
After each day’s reading, Walter carefully folded
the corner of the page – all the way to dragonfly.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. - Chief Sealth
AT EITHER END OF THE WEB
She spins by moonlight,
weaving wet strands
from mailbox to brass knob,
binding my door shut with her silk.
Each morning I claw at the web,
unraveling her mending from the night
before. She watches from behind
a clapboard, waits for darkness.
What is this web to her
that she will not surrender
but patiently repair my damage?
Am I connected to its strands
like the crumpled moth trapped
in the sticky tangle in my hand,
or like a nightmare snared
in a dream-catcher? What is this thing
I rip apart – some kind of primitive
survival map whose language has been lost
to me? Just as her instinct is to claim
this space, mine is to tear down obstacles.
Neither of us will back down. One has to go,
be banished from this struggle over territory.
Perhaps this is the way all wars begin –
small battles fought in strands of gossamer.
EGGS
Blue veins
spread up the back of her hand
like a tree of life
as her fingers root in straw
gathering fresh eggs.
She moves slowly for it is almost autumn
and air inside the coop is stiff as quill.
Fat flies flog the hen house windows
and chicks incubated in her farmhouse kitchen,
hatched in a blizzard,
and christened with old family names,
have grown to earn their keep.
Tonight, while brooders roost
in straw, bent and matted to their shapes,
and the sun slides down the backside of the hill
like a bleeding yolk,
she will dream of fertile eggs
awakening within the sleeping fowl,
and deeper dream of foxes
who prowl and thieve inside her.
A morning sun surrounded by white clouds
will find her choosing names for the unborn –
those who will forego the empty nest
beneath her skin, as always –
opting for feathers.
EVERY LIVING THING
The worker at Casella’s dump
pockets my money, and heaves
my bag of wilted lettuce, chicken
bones, coffee grounds into the pile.
He’s seen me here before –
is comfortable confessing that he’s lost
his job, confiding that tomorrow he’ll be gone
just like the screaming crow he once found stuck
between his parlor-screen and window.
With flapping wings
he recreates the bird’s escape
once the unhinged screen
was yanked away.
He tilts his grizzled chin
like the muzzle of a gun
and aims his laughter
at the garbage-gulls who screech
for scraps, mimicking his gestures
with their whacking wings.
A long white feather falls between us.
He picks it up and rests it on his ear
as if it were a quill
he’d later dip in ink to write
important words of basic creature-needs –
food, shelter, someone to hear our cries.
IF THIS HOUSE WERE A WOMAN
she would combine
sharp corners
with smooth edges
and be sturdy –
her foundation settled
like everything pre-war
she’d squint at life
with the caution
of a peep-holed door
her hair would be gray
like the wispy fog of morning
that clings to roofs
and she’d wear a corsage
of window-box petunias
on her ample chest
as she marked time’s passage
with wreaths of pine
and faded flags
she’d dread the deep of winter
when moon-glow is the only rose
upon her pillow
and her tears freeze silent
like transparent thorns –
ice sculptures in the eaves
if this house were a woman
© Copyright Regina Murray Brault. All rights reserved.