ORPHANS OF DARK AND RAIN

I’m good at telling sad stories: orphans of dark and rain.  All of my gardens, overgrown, unkempt; flower with delusion.  The swath of fear on my husband’s face is  familiar.  He can’t sleep without reaching for me.  He saw wolves carry off my future, feeding on it to fullness. 

Clare L. Martin 

I am a poet/mother/wife.

I am a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and lifelong Louisiana resident. My debut poetry collection, Eating the Heart First, will be published by Press 53 this fall as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection.

My poetry has appeared in Avatar Review, Poets and Artists, Blue Fifth Review, and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, among others.  Poems of mine have been included in the anthologies: The Red Room: Writings from Press 1, Best of Farmhouse Magazine Vol. 1, and Beyond Katrina.  My poems have been nominated for Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web (2011) for Best New Poets and Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net. A group of ten poems were chosen for the 2011 Press 53 Spotlight anthology which features a select group of emerging poets and writers.

I have written for theatre and served as one of the writers for Play. Music. Heal: a multi-disciplined collaborative theatre project of the company Acting Up (in Acadiana) which brought together actors, musicians and writers in creating a contemporary story revolving around the potential for music to heal.

I am a Teaching Artist through the Acadiana Center for the Arts and a member of the Festival of Words Cultural Arts Collective, Inc.

Some of my work that has been published online can be read via the links here. 

Each success, no matter how small, in practice of what I love is a lightning strike against the dark.

All content of Orphans of Dark and Rain is © 2006-2012 by Clare L. Martin