M.B. McLatchey is a poet and writer living, writing, and teaching in Florida. She is the author of six books, including the award-winning titles Beginner's Mind, The Lame God, and Smiling at the Executioner. M.B. is Florida Poet Laureate for Volusia County, poetry reader for Miami-based journal SWWIM, and Professor of Humanities at Embry-Riddle University. Her poetry is published both nationally and internationally and has won several awards and fellowships.

Other poems by M.B. McLatchey in Verse Daily:
December 22, 2004:  "Against Elegies" "What if we let you sing first..."

Other poems on the web by M.B. McLatchey:
Two poems
"The Breakfast Piece"

M.B. McLatchey's Website.

About Smiling at the Executioner:

"M.B. McLatchey's Smiling at the Executioner is a brilliant collection of poems inspired by the Stoic philosophy, but don't let that stop you from enjoying these poems, which know how to live on their own, to take root in your heart. These are the kind of poems you hope you can remember to quote when in moments of uncertainty. McLatchey is not some one-trick theme artist who will sing you 'I get knocked down, but I get up again'—NO!—she's the one who will serve you images, sounds, and textures that make you want to read this book aloud. She will bring you the taste of bread, the promises of olives, the singing of hunger, and the love of desire."
—J.P. Dancing Bear

"M.B. McLatchey pens these perspicacious, wise, and musically intelligent poems with a sincere gratitude for being alive in an era when 'our histories are shadows on a wall; our memories rote lessons that flicker and mutate.' These masterfully crafted poems are an antidote to our complicated age of technology, machine-enforced intelligence, and screen-based isolation. They applaud every moment of humanity, from folding a fitted sheet to drawing a bath, for knowing 'what we were, how to retrieve our former selves,' and for putting the necessary spirit back into spirituality."
—Jen Karetnick

"Smiling at the Executioner is a philosophical exploration of survival, love, marriage, men, family—and words—inspired by the Stoic mind, using image and metaphor from ancient and contemporary myth. Like an ancient story, this book is so rich it is hard to pick and choose—each poem a meditation on the Stoic desire to keep loving one another, and to persevere. When writing of forgiveness, McLatchey writes, 'not a sinner's crawl; a purging of the stench /of an unkept stall; a never forgotten love, /Penelope's woven—and unwoven—shawl.'"
—Lee (Lori) Desrosiers