P. Stansfield Tarbox
2011 New Hampshire Senior Poet Laureate

Patricia J. Tarbox, 62, Wolfeboro, whose pen name is P. Stansfield Tarbox, is a retired English teacher who has been widely recognized as both writer and teacher. She won the 2009 Honor Scroll Award for New Hampshire. She was a finalist in the New England Association of Teachers of English Poet/Teacher of the Year Award in 1992, 1996, 1997 and 1998. Her sign is Capricorn.


THE WRITERS

On dark, rough seas, they follow stars
navigating through hope born of heaven’s height,
bringing those they touch into havens of comfort.

Look how thy lift their voices in warm conviviality,
consummate hosts who bless their tables and their friends
who, in the end, know
that sons and daughters of earth do come home to truth,
that words, like open, offered hands, usher us gently
over thresholds of pain.

Where they are, we will walk in the light of imperishable stars,
knowing how most who are truly great can laugh at nonsense
because light is all.
Remember their voices, soft or harsh, across a darkening room,
voices of those who while they have the light, enrich the light
And darkness can not overtake them.

P. Stanfield Tarbox