MARIA GRAY
Photograph by Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong
Maria Gray is a poet unconditionally supportive of Palestinian resistance and liberation. Originally from Portland, Oregon, her work is published by ONLY POEMS, Best New Poets, SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, and others. She is the recipient of the John Tagliabue Prize for Creative Writing from Bates College and a Departmental Poetry Fellowship from New York University’s Creative Writing Program, and was named as a semifinalist for The Adroit Journal’s Djanikian Scholars Program in 2024. The Managing Editor of COUNTERCLOCK Journal, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Violets grew like bruises in the yard
while soil sat unwatered,
xeric and sightless. I’d been too
young for years and was happily
zombified.
Ninety-five percent of my writing is for me and me alone, because a) it sucks, and b) it’s practice. It takes a long time to learn how to articulate traumatic experiences creatively in a way that’s meant to be shared with others.
September 2, 2024