by Mary McKSchmidt | Sep 22, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025
At a time when grief lurks in the background like a cat waiting to pounce in moments of vulnerability; when the headlines tempt me to roll into a cocoon of isolation, a poet creates a cinepoem that slices through the darkness and reaches a pinhole of light flickering...
by Mary McKSchmidt | Jul 28, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025, Poetry
On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Jane McKinney—my mother, friend, teammate, co-author, chair chat buddy, and co-creator of “A Bench and a Tree”—passed peacefully, surrounded by her children in front of her beloved window. She was ninety-eight years old. Although no...
by Mary McKSchmidt | Jun 30, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025
In a life that’s zigzagged from newspapers to corporations to advocating for the Great Lakes and seniors, I write poetry to reveal and weave the jagged threads that are me. If one of my poems resonates with you, it is as if a beacon of light flashes through the...
by Mary McKSchmidt | Apr 28, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025
Could the king be checked by the people? That was the underlying question asked by the Sons of Liberty 250 years ago, according to author and historian Heather Cox Richardson. In a talk given April 18th in Boston’s Old North Church on the anniversary of the...
by Mary McKSchmidt | Apr 22, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025
(Reprinted from May 21, 2017) Although there were thousands crammed into the Vatican Square in Rome, it was as if the Pope was talking directly to me. Speaking of Mary, the mother of Jesus and the woman for whom I was named, Pope Francis called her the “Mother...
by Mary McKSchmidt | Apr 7, 2025 | Blog Post, 2025
One look at the hundreds of people lining River Avenue April 5th in Holland, MI, the multiplicity of messages on hand-painted signs, the photographs and videos of similar peaceful protests across over 1300 towns and cities in the United States, and it should be...
