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.

OPERA

I’ve seen 24,300 sunrises, maybe more,      but this morning, the plump sun sings the sky awake as if      it were the first time.  I’m rusty at the feeling of surprise, so I get down to business,      practicing appreciation, telling myself that light is an aria rolling      an exotic language on the tongue of our green lawn.   And then I think      why bother with an opera? Make it simple.  Come into this poem, sun.       Shine.   But what about tomorrow, when my kids leave home, my mother      can’t recall my name, when rain slides its little thumbs down our window pane      all morning?  Then I say to my self–who remembers nothing simple–self, then remember,      the sun is a fat diva, still singing her head off somewhere      behind the clouds, above the rain.