ann fisher-wirth

A print of Masaccio's powerful, disturbing "Adam and Eve" hangs on the walls of the bedroom I share with my husband Peter; it is one of his favorite paintings, and I've often lain in bed and looked at it, moved by their visible suffering yet also by the visible bond between them.  Two summers ago, I spent hours in front of Monet's "Les Nymphéas, 1916/1919" at the Marmottan in Paris, falling deeper and deeper into its beauty.  Painted during World War I, it helps me think about the possible meaning of art in our own disastrous times.

Ann Fisher-Wirth is the author of two books of poems, Blue Window (Archer Books, 2003) and Five Terraces (Wind Publications, 2005), and of two chapbooks, The Trinket Poems (Wind, 2003) and Walking Wu Wei's Scroll (online, The Drunken Boat, 2005).  She has received a Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Rita Dove Poetry Award, two Mississippi Arts Commission Awards, and six Pushcart nominations, including a 2006 Pushcart Special Mention.  Her poems have appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and online.  She teaches at the University of Mississippi; also she teaches yoga.  She and her husband have five grown children.