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Woman in Metaphor Anthologies are usually straightforward: there is a unifying theme and a body of poetry or essays that address the theme. Maria Elena B. Mahler’s anthology, Woman in Metaphor approaches the theme of womanhood from different angles: the art of Stephen Linsteadt and a collection of poems from 27 poets, both male and female. The anthology as a whole creates a skewed view of what is typically “womanly” by combining these fine paintings with poetry that begs to be read aloud. – Ed Bennett, poet and book reviewer (excerpt from his review which will appear in the September issue of Quill and Parchment) About the Editor: Maria Elena B. Mahler's poetry has been published in English and Spanish in Badlands, Solstice, Quill & Parchment, Global Alchemy, Saint Julian Press and Poets on Site. She was a finalist for the 2011 San Francisco-based Primer Concurso de Poesía Latinoamericana en Español, and is published in the anthology by Colectivo Verso Activo. Recently, her work was also selected for the Spanish anthology Se Buscan Quijotes, published by El Centro de Estudios Poéticos in Madrid, Spain. Maria Elena also co-authored the non-fiction book The Heart of Health (Truth Publishing Co.) and also enjoys writing fiction. She was raised in the South of Chile. After graduating with a degree in Communications, she lived and worked in Mexico and Canada, and finally settled in the Sonoran Desert of Southern California in 2003. About the Artist: Stephen Linsteadt is a painter, poet, and writer. He is the co-author of The Heart of Health; the Principles of Physical Health and Vitality. His latest book is titled Scalar Heart Connection. His poetry is published in Moments of the Soul (Spirit First), Solstice, Cradle Songs (Quill and Parchment Press), Saint Julian Press, Poets on Site, and others. His paintings have appeared in Reed Magazine, Badlands Literary Journal, and Birmingham Arts Journal and can be seen at StephenLinsteadt.com. From the Book: Beyond Words by Lois P. Jones If you could see me. If you could reach beyond this wall of words, press your palms through window into white, into the disappearance of flesh to the afterburn of dreams. If you could touch me. If you could feel my throat, its warmth; my pulse on your palm, the way colors seek texture, your eyes deep sockets in the earth, you would know I am water in their pools. Words erase me. They replace the silvery scales with wood, the dark moss between stones with gravel. They unmake the bed of me and you lie in it imagining. But there are no sheets, only winesoaked petals in the rain. Words were built for a deaf God. Let's be silent, blind and fingerless the way love is. Knowing what goes beyond the visible, the tangible– it says I am real, it says don’t think. The more we speak the more our dialect changes until we barely understand. We never had to learn a language in the dark.
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