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Parallel Press releases Small Acts by Mary Mercier
Posted 7/12/2002
MADISON, Wis.—In
the Parallel Press's latest chapbook release, Small Acts, poet
Mary Mercier explores how minuscule events reveal principal life themes.
According to Mercier, she began writing Small Acts with no particular design in mind. However, as the chapbook's content emerged, so did a cohesive idea: sense of place. Many of the poems in Small Acts relate to Mercier's own sense of place as a writer, "meaning all of those things which have, over time, connected me to particular places or particular 'kinds' of places," she said.
"I believe that one's connection to a place is what gives one a sense of awareness about that place," Mercier said. "And awareness is what it's all about, if you're a writer. Everyone is exposed to the same world, but not everyone seems to notice where they have landed."
Mercier's insights into sense of place drive Small Acts. Grace, life, death, faith, and transformation appear in Mercier's keen observations of everyday occurrences.
Mercier, a native of Milwaukee, writes poems and essays which are derived from the land and those who inhabit it. Over the years her work has appeared in regional and national publications, such as The Milwaukee Journal, Farmstead, Learning, National Gardening, Alaska Magazine and Wisconsin Natural Resources.
She completed a master's degree in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her research explored the connections between poetry and a writer's sense of place. Mercier has worked as a gardener, teacher, farmer, and factory employee. She now advises students in environmental studies at the UW. Small Acts is her first collection of poems.
This is the fourth chapbook released this year by Parallel Press, an imprint of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Since 1998, Parallel Press has released 20 original chapbooks by various Wisconsin and Midwestern award-winning poets, including Ted Genoways, Judith Strasser, Max Garland, and an upcoming selection from Jean Feraca.
Here is the title poem from Small Acts:
"Small Acts"
The fern, uncurling
its tongue of leaves
slowly, with every expectation
of sunlight
and rain.
The sparrow,
house-named,
small, brown, unsung,
despised. Gathering everything, anything,
even our refuse, taking in
even our sins.
The woman, white-haired
and bent
like the walking stick she plants
so deliberately.
Afternoons, she gardens from a chair.
Weeding, planting, still riding the earth.
Each Parallel
Press chapbook is $10; annual subscriptions for six are $50.
Orders may be sent to:
The Parallel Press
372 Memorial Library
728 State St.
Madison, WI 53706
For more information, visit http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/chapbooks/poetry/ or call 262-2600. E-mail inquiries may be sent to kfrazier@library.wisc.edu.
