Rosellen Brown
Rosellen Brown has published eleven books – novels, short stories, poetry, essays – and has lived in almost as many places – New York, Boston, San Francisco, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Texas and, currently, Chicago. After many years on the faculty of the University of Houston and more than a dozen summers leading the Spoleto (Italy) Writers’ Workshop, she now teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
She has one husband, two daughters, one grand-daughter, one cat, too many books (read and unread) on her sagging shelves, and lives in Mr. Obama’s (ex-) Neighborhood, overlooking Lake Michigan.
Poetry by Rosellen Brown
Talk and you wonder if that could be a voice.
And you lie lightly, skimming the cream
of sleep off the top of an endless night.
He said, “We do not love by word alone,”
And pulled the silence down around his voice
As though a sound could hurt him. Since those words
Became their own perverse, inviting promise,
She had to smile: “Then what is left to say
That you will listen to, except a kiss?”