Beauty Breaks in

Poetry. "Mary Ann Samyn writes poems in which the impossible happens--through language, the human experience is turned to sky, fire, fireworks, diamonds. This is a poet who is able to hijack sorrow, or error, or delight, and transform them into deeply imagined, perfectly condensed and terrifyingly expanded glimpses. One doesn't quit reading a Samyn poem, as they accumulate in the reader's mind, follow us like our own shadows, permanently. There's that much power. I find myself wondering what source it is this poet has tapped into--and how frightening and lovely it is that she has done so, so that I can tap into it through her, and have a chance to stare into the Mystery through her poems"--Laura Kasischke.

Poet Donald Revell calls Mary Ann Samyn "a devotional poet, one devoted to the mischief and sanctity of a threshold life."

Mary Ann Samyn is the author of four books of poetry, including PURR (New Issues, 2005). Her work has won the Emily Dickinson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the James Wright Poetry Award from Mid-American Review, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University.