Elisabeth Murawski

Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Zorba’s Daughter (Utah State University Press, 2010), which won the May Swenson Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 1990), and two chapbooks: Troubled by an Angel (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1997) and Out-patients (Serving House Books, 2010). Nearly three hundred poems have been published in journals or online, and she has received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Born and raised in Chicago, an alumna of De Paul University, she earned an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University. She has received grants from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, a residency from the Achill Heinrich Boll Association, and a Hawthornden Fellowship. Employed 28 years as a training specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau before retiring in 2005, she has conducted poetry workshops as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia (Falls Church campus) and Johns Hopkins University (Washington Center). She currently resides in Alexandria, VA. Source

Kinds of Silence

After heavy snow.
After the last breath.

Before lightning strikes.
Before the first breath.

In a spider’s web.
In a musical rest.

Of a sleeping dog.
Of a stone general’s breast.

With an old friend.
With a favorite brother.

From the mouth of God.
From a cold mother.

On closing a book.
On fearing what’s to come.

Under a witch’s spell.
Under a dictator’s thumb.

By a frozen river.
By a stone that’s leaning.

At the end of a war.
At another war’s beginning.

Published:

None

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2025

Themes:

Poems of the Everyday

Poetic Form

Politics

Violence & War