Unpublished Poet

One star stands in the heavens, another streaks across the sky. Every author, artist, actor, and human being has faced mounds of rejections. Marjorie Skelly has been writing her entire adult life and has received a modicum of recognition for her poems and stories and essays. But she knows what it feels like, and means, to be unpublished. It is been a stick in her eye, an undermining of her sense of self-worth, a rejection of her most dearly held dream. And now, suddenly and out of time, here is her first book, the one she was born to publish, the one that contains virtually all she has written—in one place, between two covers.

Read sample pages here: http://bit.ly/UnpublishedPoet

Praise for The Unpublished Poet

“Marjorie Skelly’s book reminds us of why we read poetry: to find a clarifying vision of what it means to be alive. Whether her poems take us inside a jumbo jet cabin, the big sky country of Montana, a mother’s hospital room, or a French countryside, we delight in the journey, one that touches our soul as well as our mind.” —Judith Valente, correspondent for PBS-TV and WGLT Radio; author of The Art of Pausing and How to Live

“The unpublished poet lives ever in our sister and brother published poets. All of us writers must realize we are apprentices if we are to sustain our essential spiritual growth. Marjorie Skelly’s collection of essays, stories, and poems testifies that we are most alive when our pen moves forward, leaving shadow tracks on light paper.” —Norbert Krapf, former Indiana Poet Laureate, author of Catholic Boy Blues, The Return of Sunshine, and Shrinking the Monster

Marjorie Skelly writes of “penciled-in places” and “do not enter” signs. Of silences that “we want more than blood” and others that are “sharper than a new knife.” She writes of journeys across the nation and throughout the seasons, sometimes ending in death, sometimes in love. Vulnerable and tough, this poet grapples with the dances and the stillnesses of life.—Patrick T. Reardon, poet, essayist, journalist, and author of five books

Marjorie Skelly’s writing uses language that soars.—Dennis Held, author of two poetry collections: Betting on the Night and Ourself