Featured Artist - Diane Attwell Palfrey

Diane Attwell Palfrey was born in Toronto and has lived in Cambridge for the past twenty years. She is a poet and prose writer.

Diane is a member of the Cambridge Writers Collective and has poetry published by the Waterloo-Wellington CAA, Serengeti Press, Craigleigh Press, Hammered Out, The Ontario Poetry Society, Cruickston Charitable Research Reserve/RARE, & Ascent Aspirations Magazine.

Diane was also the 1st place winner in the adult category for both the 2009 and 2010 Cambridge Arts Festival Poetry Contests. Here is her winning poem:

In the Throes of Perdition
(one earthquake survivor’s story)
by Diane Attwell Palfrey

A hungry earth engluts —her mouth a cobra lily bearing down. Ten days after the sate he rises from rubble hymned out, his native skin floured white. Crowds hail Emmanuel and swarm to touch his body searching for wounds. Delivering the gospel he recalls the tang of uric water turned to wine, the sounds crashing in and out like dream fits, sirens muffled, talk of pyres and Hebrew voices whisper chaos to a mind delirious from lacking. Haunts by an apostle’s song; a prayer that Father would send an eagle with sustenance further torments the wanting. Believing life succumbed on a goodly Friday he concedes to the probability that he is now a ghost confused until his mother’s voice is heard outside the tomb. And for a few seconds of aftermath there are no miracles, tragedies or kleptocrats, just transcendence and the barren snub of a harpy’s wing.