Mary Lee Gowland -- gowland@sti.net
website: www.maryleegowland.com

Mary Lee's first book of poems, Tender Bough, illustrated with photos by her parents (www.petergowland.com) was published by Crown in 1969 when she was nineteen; it sold well over 75,000 copies. Her next two books, Hand in Hand (1971) and The Guest of Tyn-y-Coed Cae (1973) are poems illustrated with her line drawings.

In 1984 she took a workshop with Jack Grapes in Los Angeles and set up a monthly reading series, Poetry on the Sand, a year later.

In 1990 she moved to the Sierra foothills and was elected President of Mountain Arts Council then Vision Academy of the Arts (www.visionacademy.org). As volunteer coordinator at Coarsegold Elementary School she introduced Writers Week, which lead to her first long-term teaching residencies there, funded by the Site Council, GATE, the Educational Enhancement Foundation and The Eastern Madera County Chamber of Commerce.

She is a PACES artist (Presenting the Arts to Children in Elementary Schools) with the Madera County Arts Council (www.maderaarts.org) which takes her to schools from Berenda to North Fork, and is sponsored by Parent Teacher clubs at schools in Oakhurst and Coarsegold.

In the fall of 2006, she published Surprise Yourself! Fun Writing Exercises for Today's Kids, forty exercises with one hundred students examples.  

She has given readings throughout California and acted in three Yosemite Players productions, The Odd Couple (1997), The Supporting Cast (1998) and Steel Magnolias (1999). In 1998 she was the Libertarian (www.lp.org) Candidate for State Senate, 12th district.

In 2007 she coordinated Poetry Out Loud, obtaining prize money for winners and stipends for judges from Sierra Telephone Company.

She has had numerous articles and over seventy poems published.   Since 2000 she has been the director of "Some Local Poets" offering classes and setting up readings by out-of-town poets. She is a member of the Lakeside Writers Guild, and writes the newsletters for the Madera County Arts Council and Vision Academy of the Arts.

BIG AND SMALL

Last night when I got dressed
I grew bigger with each article of clothing I put on.
My private face, the sad one no one sees,
completely disappeared.

The children's eyes were bright
in the golden light of the bookstore.
The silvery flute and woodsy guitar
wove around us like red ribbons.
The children's eyes were bright,
their voices golden.
Their goodness soaked directly into me
the way clear winter sun benevolently
seeps into pale December skin.

When I sleep I become small.
I coil up tight and sink into dreams
where I become big again
walking on real beach sand
complete with cigarette butts
and small polished stones.

I miss the ocean so much
I conjure it up in dreams,
the salty air the wide expanse
the forever of it that spreads
before me, reflecting a buttery sun.                           

The presence of the children
calm and patient in the bookstore's glow
was like a placid ocean, I could feel
the possibility of their lives
an undercurrent of strength
silent and unseen.

This morning as grey light
seeped into my eyes and I uncoiled,  
a galloping cat plunked onto the bed
her sweet warm breath like sunlight
against my sleepy cheek.                                      
               ~ Mary Lee Gowland

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