Wendell-based writer Mara Bright explores themes of belonging in her new poetry book “Finding Home.” Composed of 52 poems, the collections spans more than 30 years of Bright’s work.
“A lot of the poems are really an investigation of what it means to be connected,” Bright said. “What does it mean to be connected to the natural world, what does it mean to be connected to the self, and what does it mean to belong? All of those themes have always been pretty central to me, so some of the poems investigate that, and some of them are just snapshots of picking beans, or something very ordinary.”
Bright has been writing for most of her life, always dreaming of being what she calls a “professional writer.” She paired this dream with a career as a high school English teacher while hosting writing classes for adults and children. In addition to “Finding Home,” she has authored a memoir titled “The Constant Heart.”
The inspiration for her latest book struck during a live reading at the New Salem Public Library, where audience members asked to buy her book.
“Well, I didn’t have a book,” she recalled telling them.
She credits that audience as the inspiration for finally compiling her poems. She was also motivated by her grandchildren, hoping they might one day know “who their grandmother really was” through her writing.
Published in January of 2026 by Haley’s of Athol, “Finding Home” explores the question of belonging, often drawing on nature.
“Sometimes, I will just be startled by some kind of ‘oh my god, this is such a beautiful moment,’ and try to capture that in language,” she said. “Sometimes, it would be out of yearning or out of longing, wishing for something that I didn’t have.”
Two of her favorite poems in the collection are “Elegy to an Owl,” which was written after encountering a dead saw-whet owl on a walk, and what she explained was a “love poem” to her 1993 Subaru Impreza.
Bright has twice captured second place in the annual Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest organized by the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library.
Her early poems appear in “Bone Cages,” an anthology published by Haley’s. She is also the author of “The Constant Heart,” a memoir published by Levellers Press of Amherst.
Bright will be sharing her work at three upcoming talks in Franklin County. On May 5, she will join poet Janet MacFayden for a live reading at Shutesbury Public Library at 6 p.m. This will be followed by a June 18 appearance at at 2:30 p.m. at the Greenfield Public Library as part of a local writer series and a July 16 reading and teaching workshop at the Erving Public Library at 4:30 p.m. as part of its summer reading program.
For Bright, “Finding Home” is a “quest” for a sense of place.
“Now at this point in my life, I think ‘yeah, I really do belong,’” she said. “The poems are sort of stations along the way to finding home, which I feel as if, ‘yes, I have found home,’ as much as anybody finds home.”
