Annabelle Moseley’s recent poetry publications:

• “Bridge of Sighs,” A free verse poem, in issue 15 of The Seventh Quarry, the excellent Welsh journal, wonderfully edited by Peter Thabit Jones.

• “Noah,” a mirror sonnet, in issue #108 of Verse Wisconsin, edited by Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman, the brilliant Madison Poets Laureate. “Noah” is accompanied by audio and a short explanation of the mirror sonnet form which Moseley devised.

• “Jack-in-the-Box,” a sonnet that wryly questions the appeal of this particular toy, appears in the latest Umbrella Journal, expertly edited by Kate Bernadette Benedict.

The Divine Tour : Forthcoming September 2012 from Finishing Line Press

Inspired by the art, culture, and mythology of Italy that Moseley encountered on a two-week trip from Venice to Rome, this is a collection of mostly free verse, but includes a villanelle and a pantoum.

The poems that comprise The Divine Tour, by Annabelle Moseley, explore not just Italy and many of its art works, they also create “the great potential, the theories of enormous depth” that reside in such places which are, “half-real, half-imagined.” Myth, allegory and metaphor give rise to poem after poem as formally elegant as the divine tour Moseley takes her readers on until we, too, are willing to be in “the willing loss of what comes next.” A beautiful achievement!

–Elizabeth Kirschner

Annabelle Moseley begins a mythic journey riding on the back of a swan and ends up as Daphne transformed into a tree. Tour and museum guides stand between her and the European art she loves and craves to enter fully—just as she yearns for love’s fulfillment. In these lush, deftly controlled poems, she dramatizes a universal need to break through barriers that limit our spiritual growth.

–Norbert Krapf

Let Annabelle Moseley be your guide on this divine poetic tour of major works of art and significant places in Italy. She knows firsthand Da Vinci’s drawings and the paintings of Masaccio and Fra Angelico, Florence in the rain, the Fountain of Joy in Siena, and the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, as well as the pleasures of Italian cuisine, the Tuscan countryside, and a sunset in Assisi. And as a skilled poet, she knows how to depict these treasures in flowing free verse and such pleasing forms as the pantoum and the villanelle. In the title poem, Moseley invokes Dante as her guide, but has “a thing or two” to tell him. In The Divine Tour, as our guide, she has many rewarding things to tell us.

–George Held

March 28^th, 2012:  Annabelle Moseley’s newest poetry collection, The Fish Has Swallowed Earth, has been accepted for publication by Aldrich Publishing, an imprint of The Victorian Violet Press.  This lyrical free verse collection of love poems is slated for publication in Fall 2012.

I have three poems in Issue 10 of the Victorian Violet Journal: “Painting August Peaches,” “Vermeer’s Women,” and “Still Life”, which was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize. Issue 10 of Victorian Violet Journal is, as usual, tastefully edited by Karen Kelsay, and the accompanying art is a wonderful complement to the poems.

The Hillwood Art Museum of Long Island University / C.W. Post was the site of my poetry reading on February 28, 2012. Hosted by Joan Digby, the art gallery was an elegant and inspiring setting. The large crowd was attentive and responsive, and the refreshments were delicious. Many thanks to Joan and L.I.U.

January 30, 2012: Annabelle Moseley has been named Final Judge of the 2012 Oberon Poetry Prize. Sponsored by Oberon, this is the 10^th annual prize.

Now available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Read featured poems from The Clock of the Long Now

The Clock of the Long Now treats the subject of time in many forms. From myth and ancient scripture, to a clock that will keep time for the “deep future,” to time travel made possible through an historic house, and the light of poetry, this collection is a pilgrimage through measured time to sacred time. Written completely in sonnets, The Clock of the Long Now reminds of the individual clocks each of us carries within us always, the human heart.

Published by David Robert Books
ISBN: 978-1936370573
96 pages
$18.00

“Annabelle Moseley’s The Clock of the Long Now is an astonishing first book: well organized, metrically accomplished, and thematically tight. Moseley is at home with a wide range of subject matter—from personal story to Biblical account—and her topics are of equal interest. The book is a showcase of sonnet forms, including a tour de force series of mirror sonnets, and shows a depth of feeling that matches her technical skill. She is easily one of the best formal poets of her generation.”— Kim Bridgford

“I can’t think of a recent poetry collection that pursues a more ambitious project more successfully than Annabelle Moseley’s The Clock of the Long Now. Moseley unscrolls a diverse set of elements that could easily fly apart in the hands of a lesser writer and combines them into a beautifully integrated whole. It consists entirely of virtuosic sonnet sequences (some of whose members read equally well when the order of their lines is reversed!). The book’s unity reflects the life of Moseley’s materials in her own mind, heart, and imagination. If you’re looking for a reading experience of uncommon richness, depth, and feeling, you’ll find it in The Clock of the Long Now.”— Daniel Brown

“Annabelle Moseley’s poems establish human connections based on difficult choices, loss, pain, self-awareness, and redemption achieved through both personal love and the discipline of art. This passionate, thought-provoking first collection consists entirely of sonnets, discrediting the notion that form is somehow hostile to sense and inhibits passion. Moseley not only knows how to read the human heart, but also, thanks to her mastery of craft, conveys what she finds there in a voice that doesn’t sound like anybody else’s.”— Rhina P. Espaillat

“Moseley’s formal and lexical rigor are a bracing delight, her silence and sound elemental as Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat. The mirror sonnets are a particular triumph. This is a terrific debut.”— Sarah Manguso

Our house clocks stopped the day my father died—
at three, the very hour that he passed.
No catch of shifting gears, no pulse defied
his absence. Time itself mourned him. The past
and future froze in one long pause. We kept
this lack of measured music, mourning him—
the clock-lover and watch-buyer. Except,
time offered itself up in grief. The trim
minutes and hours that my father filled
grew greedy to engorge themselves with him.
And days after his death, a parcel thrilled
when it arrived. He had ordered a slim,
black-banded watch. On its face, a Dalí
painting of melting time. His memory.

One summer night in childhood, I ran
chasing a firefly. Then I let go.
That is the way my father died; the man
felt time dripping off of his fingers: slow,
honey-paced drizzle. But he shook it free
when he beheld a distant speck of light,
and lunged, then with a laugh, fell forward. He
rejected past and future for the bright
and promised steadfastness of the long now
My father’s unworn watch bore on its face,
between the marks of twelve and six, the brow
of dripping, melting time. And likewise, grace
had marked my father’s countenance, though age
had not. He had not reached the fading stage.

The Clock of the Long Now treats the subject of time in many forms. From myth and ancient scripture, to a clock that will keep time for the “deep future,” to time travel made possible through an historic house, and the light of poetry, this collection is a pilgrimage through measured time to sacred time. Written completely in sonnets, The Clock of the Long Now reminds of the individual clocks each of us carries within us always, the human heart.
Now available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

(I have been born inside him, too.) I am
my mother’s goldfinch, thistle-eater of
her womb. I sing her blood’s music, enjamb
the sounds her heart and breathing made above
my new ears between words and warbles. And—
her orchard is behind my eyelids. But
I am also my father’s fish, each hand
a fin, to thrust my way through every rut
of water, land or air. Wide-eyed, the one
swallowed up whole, caught by the line; I’ve felt
the hook in my mouth, scales flashing in sun—
I’ve bitten myself free. I bore the welt
of grief when he was gone. His fish, sent through—
I have been born—been born inside him, too.

The Clock of the Long Now treats the subject of time in many forms. From myth and ancient scripture, to a clock that will keep time for the “deep future,” to time travel made possible through an historic house, and the light of poetry, this collection is a pilgrimage through measured time to sacred time. Written completely in sonnets, The Clock of the Long Now reminds of the individual clocks each of us carries within us always, the human heart.
Now available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Your ghost would be there, folded like a fleece
across my bed at night, delaying rest.
Afraid of what I’d conjured, wanting peace,
I’d tug the blankets, waiting for the blessed
saltwater stain of sleep upon my lips.
And hours would pass before it came. That’s how
I tucked myself in every night. The ships
appearing in my dreams were you. Each prow,
your neck. Each sail, your hair. It was enough,
rocked by you. Yet you also stood on deck
beside me, made of warm, still-solid stuff.
Awakening, there was only the wreck,
the memories you left behind, your ghost—
the fleece I wore by day, skimming the coast.

My latest chapbook, The Divine Tour, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (expected release Fall 2012). Inspired by the art, culture, and mythology of Italy that I encountered on a two-week trip from Venice to Rome, this is a collection of mostly free verse, but includes a villanelle and a pantoum. This will be my sixth chapbook, and the second published by FLP.

Annabelle Moseley’s first full-length collection of poems, The Clock of The Long Now, has been selected and will be featured on The First Book Panel at the 2012 West Chester University Poetry Conference, scheduled for June 6, 2012. Moseley will be reading and discussing poems from the book as part of the panel.

I will be the featured reader at Molloy College on Sunday, November 6^th, 2011, from 3:00 to 5:30 PM. Open Mic to follow.

I will be reading from A Field Guide to the Muses, and poems from my forthcoming book, The Clock of the Long Now, among others.

Sunday, November 6
3:00-5:30 PM
Molloy College

My copy of The Seventh Quarry Issue Fourteen arrived. Edited by Peter Thabit Jones, the journal includes poems from across the globe: Wales, England, South Africa, Italy, Greece, India, Serbia, Germany, Korea, Russia, and America. The excellent work within includes poems by David Wagoner, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, William Heyen, Vince Clemente (including an interesting essay on John Hall Wheelock), Stanley H. Barkan, and Theofil Halama.

Sunday, October 23^rd, 2011, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all.
-Walt Whitman

My father, John S. Moseley (1947-1991) was an English teacher at Half Hollow Hills High School East from the autumn of 1970 until his tragic early death. He was beloved and esteemed by all who knew him. Over the years I have received a number of notes and emails from former students telling me how positively my father influenced their lives. I am always profoundly grateful for these messages. Now, one of his former students has chosen to honor him in a very special way: Ms. Jenny Lee has purchased a memorial bench at the Walt Whitman Birthplace to honor his memory. All his friends and former students are very welcome. The bench will be unveiled at a dedication ceremony. I will be reading several poems in honor of John Moseley. Please join us for refreshments, conversation and poetry.

The Walt Whitman Birthplace
246 Old Walt Whitman Road
West Hills, NY 11746