Mary Ann Samyn is the author of several collections of poetry, including AIR, LIGHT, DUST, SHADOW, DISTANCE (42 Miles Press, 2018) and My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize. She is Professor of English in the MFA program at West Virginia University. She lives in Morgantown and in her home state of Michigan.

Other poems by Mary Ann Samyn in Verse Daily:
October 9, 2017:   "A Wind Comes Through" "and buttercups respond. A beautiful set-up..."
March 14, 2013:   "Little Muchness" font size=-1>"Some shouting and the tree came down branch by branch..."
April 2, 2012:   "In Answer to Your Burning Question" "It was a minor panic, thanks. It was a mirror..."
November 3, 2009:   "In a Dark Time Together" "All day I say every blessings I can think of...."
April 2, 2009:   "Iridescent, One Might Say" "I was beautiful at a distance..."
June 3, 2008:   "Is that robin's-egg blue?, or A Poet Answers Her Critics" "—Some want a guiding principle, narrative pick-me-up...."
November 21, 2006:   "Wish and What Happens" " Back to the fe fi ho hum of it...."
November 16, 2006:   "An Introduction to Devotion" " Do you consider yourself adept? The face of..."
April 6, 2006:   "Clarity, 1.2" " Considering The Despair of St. Thomas...."
October 15, 2004:  "A Thought, for Example, Is a Form" "Of light. And at the center, light. And at the edges..."

Books by Mary Ann Samyn:

Other poems on the web by Mary Ann Samyn:
"On Safety"
Two poems
Four poems
Four poems
Five poems
"Beneath Speech"
"For Years to Come"
"The Beauty Zone"
"My Life in Heaven"
"First Poem"
Three poems
Two poems
"If This, Then That"

About Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance:

"Upon these new poems, Mary Ann Samyn has inscribed a deep, Neo-Classical verity: that poetry is Vigil, a tender and raging attention. To our depraved America, such truly Attic grace comes as a godsend. In Samyn, we find the Cavafy of our moment. This book is immediately permanent."
—Donald Revell

"Poetry. Winner of the (2017) 42 Miles Press Poetry Award. 'Like its titular catalog of nearly weightless, ephemeral phenomena, the brief lyrics in Mary Ann Samyn's new book are only deceptively slight. Rather, they offer, as she writes in 'Desire,' 'a lesson in how little—' it takes to trigger the most enormous feelings: fear, longing, grief, vulnerability, intimacy. The push of wind on water, presaging snow; the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger; heat shimmering between two proximate bodies; fingers touching a collar; the glance of a deer—all signal pent emotions whose force might explode if not for this poet's exquisite, signature, courageous restraint amidst the suffering of love."
—Lisa Russ Spaar

"Mary Ann Samyn's AIR, LIGHT, DUST, SHADOW, DISTANCE is a book of lyric meditation unlike any I know of. It's as if Rilke took a vow to speak in end-stopped lines and let the mystery resonate in the pauses. Clipped, incisive, layered phrases surround heart-mysteries that resist direct articulation. The effect is haunted and haunting, as Dickinson said it should be."
—Gregory Orr