WELCOME!

The latest news:  On November 7, 2023 Jeanne’s memoir, Leaping from the Burning Train: A Poet’s Journey of Faith will be published by Slant Books. You can choose from several options to pre-order the book on the Slant website. 

Jeanne Murray Walker is the award-winning author of 9 volumes of
poetry and one memoir as well as a number of plays which have been
performed in theaters across the country and in London. She is an
Emeritus Professor at The University of Delaware, where she taught
for 40 years and headed the Creative Writing Concentration.  Jeanne
currently serves as a poetry Mentor in The Seattle Pacific Low
Residency MFA Program.  From her home outside Philadelphia
she blogs about the troubling politics of our time, reading and writing,
and the surprising power of stillness.   She travels widely to speak
and read her poems in places ranging from The Library of Congress
to Romania, from Italy to Texas Canyon Country. You can find her
papers and letters archived at Wheaton College’s Buswell Library
and at The University of Delaware’s Morris Library. Jeanne has
appeared on PBS television and is frequently interviewed on the radio.

SHE BRINGS HIM HOME

          And so your husband is safe, and he will           come soon; he is very near, not far away,           and it will not be long before he returns.                                  —The Odyssey, Book XIX Accepting the shawl of light and the thought of light and the actual yellow jonquils nailing the patient ground, she sits by the window,                               casting out her thread and                drawing in her thoughts, weaving, weaving. He has come with a clairvoyant eye,                not the man himself                but the old desire for him,                               the prophet, and cold staggers under a new weight of sunlight. Time is for her to bear the warmth again for her mind turns around, turns around and the trees start pitying with green their own bare sticks, the clouds start pacing across the unmoved sky, the violent scent of lilacs starts staining the air.                Laying aside her thread,                               she straightens her shoulders and leans into the terrible gaiety of spring.