Debut hybrid collection of poems and borrowed form.




Firmer Ground

Beth Mulcahy is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals. She writes to bridge the gaps between history and the self, between hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. She works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Beth’s debut Chapbook, Firmer Ground, is available from Anxiety Press.  Learn more about Firmer Ground and check out her latest publications on her website: https://www.bethmulcahywriter.com.

Basic Bio

Beth Mulcahy is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals. Her writing bridges the gaps between generations and self, hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children and works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. 

54 words or less

Beth Mulcahy (she/her) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals. Her writing bridges the gaps between generations and self, hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children and works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Her latest publications can be found here:  https://www.bethmulcahywriter.com/publications.html

72 words or less

Beth Mulcahy (she/her) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and writer whose work has appeared in over thirty literary journals. Beth lives in Wooster, Ohio with her husband and two children. She works for a Wooster-based company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Beth’s debut chapbook with Anxiety Press, Firmer Ground, was published in April. You can find out more about the book and check out her latest publications on her website: bethmulcahywriter.com and her free substack at https://bethmulcahy.substack.com.

bio for readings

1. Number of times I met you before I fell in love with you


An Ardent Accounting

Have you ever watched the sunset at cloud level? Watched it dip below the cloudline while you were right there with it, right there in it? There is enough fog in the afternoon to necessitate lights on the runway as the plane takes off. The drops

Phone Notes from Dizzying Heights

If you bury your face in it and breathe very deeply you can still smell the woman whose shoulders it once kept warm.

The Shawl

I love meat and potatoes 
like a good Irish girl
the tuber ties
of my DNA are deep and distant


I Have Something to Say About Potatoes

The Board of Directors of Your Life, d/b/a “you,” met at the regularly scheduled time in the predetermined recesses of your mind to discuss the status of Your Life and all relevant pending issues related thereto. 

The Board of Directors of Your Life

The space between
shower and sleep (smells like shampoo on wet hair)
between
night and day (no one else awake yet)
between
here and there (on airplane flying over ocean)

Connecting Flights

I’m crossing the ocean for you
so you will love me as I love you

An Ode to the Old Country

Bob Dylan live in concert at
the Michigan State Fairgrounds in
1994 for five dollars at the gate
waiting all day under an August sun

The Beauty

Your furry face finds me wants my fingers scratching behind your ears

Flippy

Someone I used
to know
said the key to moving
forward
is not looking
back


Flashbacks

Make a list of
things that sound like thunder but are not
conversations to have
hard conversations to have
what makes conversations hard
what makes conversations easy

List of Things to Make a List Of

I think of the night I decided I couldn’t wait to not be thirteen anymore. It wasn’t a far drive; I only lived a few blocks up the street. Earlier that day, I had walked down to babysit but it was dark now so the mom told the dad to drive me home. 

When I Remember How it Felt to be Thirteen

It’s the vastness of it that calms me
from the shore
my toes exfoliating in sand

Currents

The hollow heart pumps peace rhythmically, contracting and dilating, pushing calm methodically against the flow of fight. Peace is the absence of disturbance but it is not 

Resting Heart Rate, The Northeast Direct, Walking Around

Before you begin, separate out all expectations and discard (do not bother setting aside for use later or for any other relationships as unfulfilled expectations are generally considered ruinous.) 

How to Bake a Marriage

Re: Formal Request for Mercy

Dear Universe,

I am writing in follow up to recent events within the scope of your realm and provide you with some comments and questions related thereto.

Formal Request for Mercy

My old friend, it’s good to see you again, in spite of it all. Will you sit down? There’s something 
I need to say, so this drink, it’s on me. Hearts break all the time, I know, but there’s this little

Inadequacy and Attic Alcove

True love but for the fact
of becoming part of a past
for you to run from
true love but for the lack

True Love but for the Lack of What is Not

And now I descend into the depths of myself from the surface of my life, like a goddess diving headfirst into the underworld.

Dignified Descent, On the Edge of Now, Looking Back

you don’t feel it right away the usedness of it all
only later you think about it and your body

Beth Mulcahy

Books

Selected work