ABOUT ELLEN FOOS ...

Ellen Foos is a senior production editor for Princeton University Press. She previously worked at Graywolf and Ecco Presses. A selfless and energetic promoter of poetry, she founded the monthly reading series "U.S.1 Poets Invite" at the Princeton, N.J. Public Library and has been production editor for the poetry journal U.S.1 Worksheets for the U.S.1 Poets' Cooperative. She has also organized memorable poetry slams for The Arts Council of Princeton. Ellen’s poetry has appeared in U.S.1 Worksheets, The Kelsey Review, Edison Literary Review, and Sensations Magazine. She founded Ragged Sky Press in 1992. She was the recipient of a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in 2007.

 

A SAMPLE FROM ELLEN FOOS ...

Maternal Instinct

Not a mother who drove us to things,
didn't like driving--or other Moms,
but in the backyard she neglected
the clothesline to play with us.
Joe was steady when she married him,
seven kids later he was still solid.
Her dreams were artistic,
not caught up in soap operas.
She was creating a new breed
with crayons, storybooks and blind faith.
We tried hard to satisfy;
her rovers, fakers and whiners,
scholars and volunteers.
On Sundays we went for church
and then candy.
She kept her eye on the kitchen clock,
telling us the time
or teaching us to tell it.
Smell the pines she'd insist
when we were bundled on a walk.
It pierces me now
like no other advice.