Poet in the Loop: Mary Wemple

Friendswood Public Library's off the page poetry series presents Poets in the Loop on Wednesday, September 17 at 7pm. Poets in the Loop is a Houston area poetry critique group with published and award winning poets. Join us for an evening of creative and insightful poetry. 

Mary Wemple is the creator and coordinator of Words & Art, a reading series of poetry and prose inspired by the art at Rice University Art Gallery.  She is also the leader of the Poets in the Loop critique group, member of the Houston Poetry Summit and volunteer at the Houston Poetry Fest.  Her poetry has been published in Houston Poetry Fest Anthology, Spiky Palm and she will be featured in the Words Around Town! poetry tour lineup in Houston this August.

 Death in the Lunch Room

The TV in the lunch room

finally died.

Larry from the print shop

can’t revive it anymore

no matter how much he slaps it.

It stopped responding

and sits there quietly reflecting

the windows and the traffic outside.

It used to chatter 

to the microwave about

current events, fashion, celebrities.

But the microwave only wanted

to talk about hunger, lines of waiting,

and the ways food could explode.

“The world isn’t all about lunch,” 

said the TV in its final days.

The microwave only hummed

as it turned things around inside

and patiently counted backwards.

~Mary Wemple