Vespers
Oh, Astronomer
spaceship builder
of the galaxies
look at me
a periwinkle
a snack for seagulls
clinging to this rocky shore
with my hard shell,
and sticky glue holding on.
Silence,
in the salt sprays,
hear my movement,
my rough tongue,
across this Absence.
I could take almost any beating
from Your waves.
Inside soft and fleshy
peering out, sluggish
on the shoals.
Oh botanist of Bird-
of-Paradise and the
short-lived crocus
I search for You.
POET, WRITER, EDUCATOR
INEXACT GRACE
My most recent book of poems, published by Regal House Publishing in 2021.
“Abigail Warren’s Inexact Grace explores family and community with compassion and laugh-out-loud humor. The poet finds just the moment when a story brims over with emotion. She paints a world where people care deeply for one another. The writer’s big, big heart powers all these poems.”
Air-breathing Life
“Abigail Warren’s poetry is rich with the natural world—salmon, locusts, summer corn, periwinkles—and humans with their suffering and their absurdity, like the mother who, as she’s dying, sends the daughter to the store for 50 cents off the tissue paper. Often Warren’s poems reveal the ways in which all beings are surprisingly alike, as in the wonderful title poem, “Air-breathing Life”—a description of sleeping with a new lover who twists, flaps and slaps his tail like a hooked fish while the poet slides an arm in his fin and waits while you adjust/to this air, this life/of yours with me. These are insightful, well-made poems that show us truths about ourselves and the multitude of life around us.”
Rosemary Thomas Poetry Prize
Terry J. Cox Poetry Prize
Massachusetts Book Award Nomination
5 Pushcart Prize Nominations
Deanna Tulley Multimedia Finalist, 2021