Mignon Ariel King was born in Boston City Hospital in 1964; she grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts. An alumna of both the former Girls' Latin School (Boston Latin Academy) and Simmons College, she proudly identifies as a middle-aged Black woman writer. Ms. King began writing poetry at age 11; was an English instructor for roughly a decade; and has been reading at open mikes since 1998. She is currently working on the novella which will complete an autobiographical trilogy-in-progress (fiction, memoir, poetry).
"In Snow Motion" was displayed at Boston's City Hall from February through May, 2007, as part of the "Mayor's Prose and Poetry Program". "Legacy", intended to be read aloud, is included in an anthology of poets local to Greater Boston, "Bagels with the Bards-2"
A Woman's Touch There's the thought of it, incessant as bad weather, as relentlessly absent as fair-weather friends; then, of course, there is the reality. Love is not that painful first step, the stuttering boy, first blush of woman-hooded response. It is pure imagination creeping up on an adult grown, on a perfectly fine and so-far-well-managed day to taunt that she’s forgotten something at home again—not the coffee pot, nor the heat of the iron, but equally important and impending; it is something she might never put a finger on. The State of the Boston Common
[Address to Robert Lowell] The gold dome is re-gilt, beaming now as a sea breeze claps Old Glory over the Negro soldiers, marching left forever. Shaw, astride, repeatedly misplaces his sword,* and his chin-strapped face stiffly accepted history when the Black general rededicated his monument. Once the grass, woven with concreted cow paths surrounding maples and oaks, shook, and ghosts of witches hanged on absent gallows swayed along with the colored brass band as the corner office of the State House was re-occupied to the Boom! of cannon fire. Unknown workers dash down the Freedom Trail, rushing lunches at overrated bistros, but they are named today, those troopers, heroically carved in their stony niche, overwhelming tourists and new college brothers who feign indifference with trembling chins. Your words echoed above treetops today when teenagers field-tripping the narrow sidewalks read poetry impromptu, one proudly relinquishing a tear while passersby slowed to listen, collars upturned; the lavender-glassed bay windows braced on Beacon Street's herringboned bricks. Amber 'mums rest patiently at the bus stop, loiterers still slowing the peel of pine benches, news unbundling to the clop of horses' hooves, white carriages bearing witnesses to Beantown's legacy; but tomorrow, our first African-American governor will stride, eyes forward, into the text of history. *Rumor has it that frat boys stole and returned the real sword so often that now its replacements are cast in plaster. come, Saturday morning? when you're 40ish, half the single women you know spend useful weekends canning their own preserves, making note paper out of dandelions and brown bags, but they laugh at you for watching Martha Stewart, eating cold pizza with your vitamin A. lately barely keeping a journal and a roof, I buy apple butter and strawberry preserves from farmers camped under pop-tents in Copley Square, contact friends through e-mail. except Brian, loyalist to actual stationery, thank God. but then there was last weekend, journeying to a job fair via puddle-jumping in a sleet-pour. a cold day, a long walk; blowing snow ghosts to pass time, killing them hard with a walking stick. pocketing frozen berries. scooping pretty rocks. following a delightful roar: all in all, when one is sliding fast toward mid-40s, discovering a river falling through Newton seems like a Saturday well spent.