An Exceptional Poem by Maria Carvalho – Our Writer in Residence

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BIO

Maria Carvalho’s love for words has always been as fervent as her fear of math. Her multi-genre short fiction has appeared in a smorgasbord of anthologies and literary magazines—most recently, Roi Fainéant, MetaStellar, Free Flash Fiction, and 101 Words—and her latest poetry can be found in several #1 best-selling books published by Literary Revelations, where she is the writer in residence. Her popular children’s book Hamster in Space! was praised by Kirkus Reviews for its “sharp understanding of kids’ wacky sense of humor”—a testament to the fact that she’s still a kid at heart.

A 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee, Maria lives in Connecticut, where she enjoys the outdoors, photography, reading, and subjecting her family to her puns. Find her on Twitter and Bluesky: @immcarvalho.

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The Search for Starlight

The lonely Earth drifts helplessly on a vast cosmic sea.
There is no one to remember its azure skies and verdant lands;
All traces of the past are buried far beneath the bitter ice,
And in the perpetual darkness, time itself is frozen.

Long ago, mankind fought desperately to save their dying star—
But they could not escape the numbing certainty of their fate.The merciless cold grew stronger as the meager light ebbed away,
And in the end, humanity yielded to the crystalline night.

Now, the bereft planet mourns the ashen sun that let it go.
Sailing through sable heavens, it yearns for a beacon of starlight—
A sign that it will be held in a warm embrace once more;
A glittering hope that life will one day rise from Earth again.

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OUR BOOKS

1. Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony and Power in Japanese Art
2. Fine art Photography: Lullscapes in Light and Shadow
3. Tranquility: An Anthology of Haiku 
4. Celebrating Poetry by Cindy Georgakas 
5. Full Moon Confessions: Poetry by Tracey Anne
6. Petals of Haiku: An Anthology 
7. Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology
8. Echoes Lost in Stars: Poems by PS Conway
9. Love, Stars, and Paradigms: Poems by Swarn Gill
10. Building Sandcastles by C.X. Turner and James Welsh  
11. Greenlandos by Virginia Witch

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