Author Mae Bea Sayes is an artist-poet inspired by life, love, and literature. She transposes poems from images that come alive from ideas about her journey with the meter of language and the characters of literature. She creates cadence through wordplay and loves rhyme whenever it works. In her new collection of poems, The Graveyard and Other Poems, she examines the journey of the soul's death, reawakening, and redemption. Written in a cadence that recalls the work of Edna St Vincent Millay, the lyrics speak to the pandemic, a walk through a graveyard full of great ghosts, painful love, and the long-awaited redemption of sins after death. The ethereal spirit of the poems speaks as a voice about the mystery of the soul's departure from life. She also touches on themes of love and love lost. As I lay in the graveyard, I am revealed, transmuted through snow, hidden like the rose in the translucent light peeking out in the early spring —from “The Graveyard.”
Author Mae Bea Sayes is an artist-poet inspired by life, love, and literature. She transposes poems from images that come alive from ideas about her journey with the meter of language and the characters of literature. She creates cadence through wordplay and loves rhyme whenever it works. In her new collection of poems, The Graveyard and Other Poems, she examines the journey of the soul's death, reawakening, and redemption. Written in a cadence that recalls the work of Edna St Vincent Millay, the lyrics speak to the pandemic, a walk through a graveyard full of great ghosts, painful love, and the long-awaited redemption of sins after death. The ethereal spirit of the poems speaks as a voice about the mystery of the soul's departure from life. She also touches on themes of love and love lost. As I lay in the graveyard, I am revealed, transmuted through snow, hidden like the rose in the translucent light peeking out in the early spring —from “The Graveyard.”
Tromp the Graveyard
She slithers from the clay into her past, recreating
pain of love, the deep Byronic heart
Memory lapsed and wrapped
in a web of desolation of the soul
revived for her penance.
Oh, Love Divine, ideal grace, and beauty.
So bright! So bright!
Her soul shivers,
crushed by the foot of the Virgin.
Reality, stained wine on the white dress of death.
She, guilty, possessed of sin,
crying for her soul.
An eternal abyss, penitent, heartfelt
kneeling by the cross.
Oh, Love Divine, ideal grace.
So bright! So bright!
She shivers in the cold, unlit darkness
of earth, surrounded by clay.
Lord Byron
He hammered with his heel
upon the grate of hell.
And opened up the door
of ghosts and spirits
all wrapped in dappled green
and banished to time and darkness.
Death quaked when Byron’s soul arose,
dressed in infamy and the tussled lace.
Oh, how Byron brooded upon the night,
humanity, temptation,
the universe, and the light.
Father, the man, the hero,
the doomed lover of unrequited
misery. Lower me down into your fortress,
so I can awake the boneyard of your grief.
Let me lie in your nestled repose
and meet my kindled lover
with an unrepentant heart
and relinquish grace in the worm.
For fans of Anne Carson and Mary Oliver, The Graveyard by Mae Bea Sayes is a gorgeous poetry collection that can and will bridge the gap between the classics and the poets of our days. Sayes seems to take inspiration from the likes of Byron, Keats, and Dickinson which give this collection an older feel while still keeping the work rooted in the present.
Sayes’ usage of a graveyard as the main theme for this collection is bound to stir a myriad of feelings in readers. Her words beg the question: Can love truly ever be lost? Is there a love strong enough to bust through the grave to return? And can love be the same after death? Do the sins of the grave follow the lover and their return from said grave?
Sayes creates stunning visuals right from the beginning: Damp walks through cold graveyards, morning dew on a cloudy spring morning, and love returning from those very graves. Green grass, moss, and vines overtaking headstones and statuesque grave markers. There is an overall image to this collection, which is not only special, but also gives it immense character. This collection is perfect for people who admire the classics, but struggle to comprehend the older language used in them. Sayes does a great job keeping the language modern, while still managing to evoke something ancient. Fans of the classic authors like the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens will find this collection both satisfying and familiar.
Sayes gives us her modernized take on the greats and truly succeeds in doing so. Her poems, while keeping an almost uniform length, say all they need to say to us and more. With lovely prose and clear visuals, The Graveyard by Mar Bea Sayes absolutely deserves to be your next read!