Poetry & Poets

Grace Cavalieri

Grace Cavalieri

Grace is Maryland’s Tenth Poet Laureate. She has 21 books and chapbooks of poetry and 26 produced short-form and full-length plays. Her newest poetry publication is Showboat, 2019. Grace founded and still produces "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio, celebrating 43 years on-air in 2019. The show’s recorded at the Library of Congress and transmitted via Pacifica Network. She holds two Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards (1993 & 2013), A Paterson Poetry Prize, a Pen Fiction Award, the Bordighera Award for Poetry, The CPB Silver Metal and received the Associated Writers' Program George Garrett Award for 2013.

Silence, The Way It Hides The Truth

Silence, wanderer, you, with your purposeful imagery -
Nothing inflames the past as much as you do!
How many places can you lead the mind at once -
Perception?  (Oh, now you look down) - Invention?
(Now you nod) - So much you hold, to darkness,
then to bliss.
Look at this collection of poems - most expressive,
don't you think? Various patterns fused together? All
with Silence. So, how many                              
different directions do you own, replenished by words?
You surround language with sensuality as if you were alive.
You want to do us in,
your ceaseless spirit, avoiding my gaze,
taking us down the road with you.
Silence, the mother of all muses,
always the winner, in wait for us, with your cunning,
treating me to the final word.