Cover image: “Seville” by Kai Bodwell
“Steeped in Rilke, attuned to Whitman, Mary Buchinger has written a
Book of Hours chronicling moments that mesh the physical with the
spiritual. Her openness to the world causes worlds to open within her.
She penetrates the growth of a tree in good years and hard years by
reading the formation of its rings as readily as she reaches into the life
of Francis of Assisi, illuminating his understanding of the sacred, his
ailments, and his love for and ministering to animals as well as people.
We, her readers, partake of the joy that arises from her encounters with
what she sees and feels. And when she pulls aside a curtain to show us
a scene remembered from many years earlier, lodged next to the “left
ventricle” of her heart, we learn the heart of the matter: art thrives on
conjuring the real.”
— Jennifer Barber, author of The Sliding Boat Our Bodies Made
About Mary Buchinger
Mary Buchinger is the author of eight collections of poetry; in addition to There is only the sacred and the desecrated (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2026; Paul Nemser Book Prize, Honorable Mention), recent books include The Book of Shores (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2024; Permafrost Book Prize in Poetry finalist; Hillary Gravendyk Prize, semifinalist), Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, Honors, 2024 Massachusetts Book Award), and Virology (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), and she is the winner of the 2024 Elyse Wolf/Slate Roof Chapbook Prize. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including AGNI, Pedestal Magazine, Plume, Salt Hill, Salamander, Seneca Review, and is permanently installed in Cambridge, where she lives and served as Poetry Ambassador. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador and earned a doctorate in linguistics from Boston University; she teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Website: www.MaryBuchinger.com
Author photo: Stephen Bodwell