Maren O. Mitchell’s poems
are published this spring in the following journals: “U for a Time,” and “An
Amputated M,” in Hotel Amerika; “What
matters is that I” and “What doesn’t matter to me” in the May online issue of
The Lake (UK), the link: http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry/maren-o-mitchell/
; “Welcome home, meteor,” and “How to Grow Younger in One Night” in Tar River Poetry; “Hearing/Listening” and “Mourning Doves” in POEM; “Curriculum Vitae” in Slant, A Journal of Poetry; and “Dancing
with the Refrigerator,” “Night Light” and “Travels in Good Sleeping Weather” in
Poetry East, Barcelona 93/94 Issue.
Maren O. Mitchell: a North Carolina native,
in her childhood Maren O. Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and
Kaiserslautern, Germany, attending local schools and learning French and
German. After moving throughout the
southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest
in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
Mitchell has worked in a
variety of jobs, from proof reader to miller. She taught poetry at Blue Ridge
Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home
National Historic Site. For over thirty years, across five southeastern states,
she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Due to spinal cord
surgery when forty, she spent many years learning how to live well in spite of
chronic pain.
Mitchell’s poems appear
in POEM, The Comstock Review, Slant, A
Journal of Poetry, The Pedestal
Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Chiron Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Lake (UK), Skive (AU), The Classical
Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose
Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain,
Appalachian Journal, The Arts Journal and
Red Clay Reader #4.
Her work is included in The Crafty Poet II: a Portable Workshop; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements
with Gerard Manley Hopkins; The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V &
VII; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems; Sunrise from Blue
Thunder; Nurturing Paws; and Echoes across the Blue Ridge.
Two poems, “X
Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been
nominated for Pushcart Prizes by contributing editors of Pushcart. In 2012 she
received 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia
Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat
Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide,
(Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com
is on Amazon. Interconnecting with writers throughout mountain towns in
northern Georgia, she participates in monthly critique groups and public
reading venues.