Telephone Man

Mary Ann (Maitland) Mayer grew up in Lincoln, Rhode Island. She practiced occupational therapy in and around Boston, New Bedford, and Providence for twenty-five years, and is the author of several clinical articles and textbook chapters. She holds degrees from Boston University and Tufts University. Mary Ann has been writing poetry for ten years. She is a member of the writers' community at the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Her poems have appeared in journals including Mediphors, Poesy, and Crone's Nest, and in anthologies published by 1st Books, Feminist Writers Guild, and Outriders Press. She is a past recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. Mary Ann is proud that Telephone Man is her first book of poetry. She considers the opportunity to collaborate with her father and to render his experiences into poems, a gift. About Telephone Man, she says: Although the diction and images of this book are unique and mark a departure from my usual poetry, I always enjoy imaginatively rendering real experiences, and the grittier the better. I feel that poetry is an ideal way to evoke meaning from the commonplace, and to shine a light into the hidden corners of daily life. With her loving and creative husband Carl Peter (Pete) Mayer and their gifted bird dog Emma (pen-named Ezra Hound), she divides her time between Sharon, Massachusetts and Franconia, New Hampshire.