Meet Mary Louise Cox, Mamaroneck's Poet Laureate

The snow falls

And covers the land

Like God's protecting hand

By pulling a snow-white blanket

Over all the land

When winter comes.

–First Poem by Mary Louise Cox

When a seventh-grade schoolgirl wrote these lines in Jamestown, N.D., in 1935, she never could have expected that it would begin her journey as a writer, a path that would lead her to become the first poet laureate in the Village of Mamaroneck .

In 2007, then Village Mayor Kathy Savolt approached Cox and asked her to assume a prestigious honor as the first poet laureate of the Village of Mamaroneck; Cox gladly accepted, and continues to hold the position today.

Savolt remembers Cox as being delighted, nervous and uncertain about what the duties of the position would entail. But once Cox was reassured that she could make the position her own, she embraced the honor.

"I was thrilled to be invited," Cox said. "It somehow seemed like the next step for me."

Cox was soon asked by Mamaroneck Town Supervisor Valerie O'Keeffe to assume the same post for the Town of Mamaroneck. Consequently, Cox currently wears the crown for both the village and the town.

Consistent with the mission of most poet laureates, Cox works toward raising the community's consciousness of reading and writing poetry. Traditionally, a poet laureate will also set an additional agenda—Cox seeks to introduce as many students as she can to the art of poetry.

In 2001, Cox organized "Poetry Live!," an event held during April, National Poetry Month. Now an annual local event, "Poetry Live!" celebrates poetry written by high school students. Held at venues like the Jay Heritage Center and Whitby Castle in past years, Cox's had initially hoped the event would one day be held at the Emelin Theater.

By 2010, the event had so grown in popularity that she realized her dream. The ninth annual "Poety Live!" saw the Emelin Theater filled with gifted young writers, parents, siblings, teachers and elected officials. Many of the student poets read their poems in public for the first time.

"I was delighted and impressed by the way the students arrived," Cox said. "They were dressed appropriately: no jeans or shorts, no hanging or dragging pants. They were so well attired—it showed the amount of respect they had for the work."  

Cox's work with "Poetry Live!" came on the heels of her work on the award-winning LMC-TV cable television program Poetry Moments, for which she won the Maryann Sullivan Award for Achievement in Community Television. As a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, she worked with prison inmates producing an Emmy Award winning video on AIDS which was later used at the facility for in-house training and information. 

Her contributions to the arts and the community have also garnered recognition from ArtsWestchester. In April of this year, she received their Sophia Abeles Award for Community Arts—an honor, she notes, that left her dumbfounded.

Invited to lunch by a friend on the Arts Council, Cox was pleasantly surprised when she arrived at the restaurant and saw three other friends from the council at the table.  

"How nice, I thought, that the other ladies were there," Cox recalled.

When they informed her that these friends who nominated her had themselves won an award for nominating the winner, she had tears in her eyes. The arts award is the council's most distinguished award, bestowed each year on individuals and organizations that have made extraordinary contributions to the arts and community.

Always humble, Mary Louise Cox has won more awards than most of us will ever receive in our lifetime.

"Mamaroneck is called the 'Friendly Village,'" Cox said.  "I am so pleased to live here where I have been able to win so many awards doing what I love to do. The awards I have received have all been great, but it's really not about me, It's about the teaching. It's about the poetry."

The tireless octogenarian leads a busy life in the Friendly Village, one she shares with her husband of 10 years, Fred Rosenberg, and their feline. And as hard as it is to believe, the couple shares one computer to work on the myriad of projects they pursue: he is a member of the Mamaroneck Public Library Board of Trustees, reads to children at the library and takes piano lessons. She writes a monthly column entitled "Poetic License" for The Sound and Town Report, hosts a women's writing group, has published limited editions of her poetry and is always looking forward to the next challenge. As she says: "One thing always leads to another, and that is what makes my world go round."

Cox named a few fellow poets as inspirations: Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Kooser and Mary Oliver.

And in some of their footsteps, Cox is not particularly fond of the way poetry has been traditionally taught.

"If I ever get around to it, I would like to publish the book I have in my head for which I already have the title, The Poet in All of Us," she said. "I love turning people on to poetry—it's fun. There are 44 or more forms of poetry, and Emily Dickinson did not follow any form. She wrote her own. That's how poetry should be: it should flow. It should not be rigid."   

The Labyrinth Effect

In our own way we accomplished the deed—

walking, circulating around.

dragging, moving along on foot,

restlessly—

meditating, dashing

or making slow progress,

pursuing in miniature

our life's course.

We were from time to time

in unison with another,

then alone, dancing, running,

crawling, frolicking, stumbling

along the Labyrinth of our life.

Now who of us remain pilgrims

following our spiritual compass?

Who among us aspire after the sacred?

Who among us remember why we paused at the Center?

Who would take up the staff, the bowl,

the broad-brimmed hat?

Who among us in that deep time

recovered a vision of Paradise

as we traveled the pattern

and honored the Rose?

–Mary Louise Cox