Maria Teresa Horta was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1937. At 81 years old, Horta continues to be recognized for her association with two fellow poets, Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa. In 1971, during the fascist Estado Novo regime the three women (known thereafter as “The Three Marias”) wrote a collaborative work entitled Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters). The book was banned, resulting in a trial that attracted worldwide attention and identified the three writers as feminist icons. In 1974 the regime fell and the charges were dropped. Horta has published 21 collections of poetry. She lives in Portugal.

Edite Cunhā is a writer, artist, and activist who believes that creativity can transform the individual as well as society. She leads multi-media art and writing workshops for people of all ages. Cunhā has a BA from Smith College and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She lives Massachusetts.

M.B. McLatchey is a widely-published poet and the recipient of several literary awards, including the American Poet Prize from the American Poetry Journal. She won the 2013 May Swenson Award for her debut poetry collection, The Lame God (Utah State Univ. Press) and was a finalist in the Women’s Voices Competition for her book Advantages of Believing (Finishing Line Press). Recently elected as Florida’s Poet Laureate for Volusia County, she is Professor of Classics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. Visit her: www.mbmclatchey.com

POEM
This is my epic
wrought in poetry
wounds and words

without gods without battles
without heroes or tears
without bronze armaments

Poem to poem to poem
passion after radiance after grace
in its truest form

FROM THE BEGINNING
At first I wrote
in brief mutterings
and the halting service of a wing

unaccustomed
to the flight of words

Then I found my footing
in the very depths of myself
in the courage of the verses

where one reaps
raptures
from the body of the writing

Next I began
to haunt verbs
and to reinvent metaphors

the syntax of passion
the icons of time
the doubts, the dilemmas

In writing poems

ANTICIPATION
I constrain myself
in waiting for the poem
to arrive

with a beating of wings

with the heart on fire
in the likeness of a body

the reverse of verse
remorse locked away
quickly and quietly

hallucinating

IDEALIZATION
I fashion with care
poetry
and words

life and its stories
the stars
and the characters

I use in my life

Between verses
stanzas
gardenias and just before dawn

spinning and weaving

I fashion the passion
and the rose
	of my work