As if your skill could set you free: 
You want to immerse 
yourself in notes, the sorrow 
of others turned to palaces, glades, 
shadow and light and the scent 
of lilac drifting through 
an open window, the colors 
staining, backlit by sun. 
To play through the thick rope 
of grief. A way back. 

Ann Quinn

is a poet, editor, teacher, mentor, mother, and classical clarinetist. Her award-winning work has been published in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Broadkill Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women.

Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press, and a book co-written with one of her long-running classes, Poetry is Life, is now available from Yellow Arrow Publishing. She teaches poetry courses via Zoom for Yellow Arrow and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda and is the poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Journal. Ann holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family.

Visit her at: https://www.annquinn.net