Mary Moran

     The office bookshelf of Mary Moran, who teaches writing at the University of North Florida, is all but empty. A few stray literature texts, just the basics, are all that occupy the full-sized unit.
     A high school math teacher for 23 years, Moran moved from Canada to Jacksonville in 1997 to be near her daughter and to write full time. It was the right equation.
     She applied to teach as an adjunct professor at UNF at the suggestion of a friend, and before she knew it, she was teaching -- but her focus remains on her writing.
     "I am a writer who teaches," Moran said, "not a teacher who writes."
     Before the end of this semester, Moran will release "unbuttoned," a poetry journal she is sponsoring on her own.
     The name of the journal was serendipitous, Moran said. Prompted by students, she opened a book of poetry, closed her eyes and pointed -- at "unbuttoned."
     "It has a sense of revealing who you are," Moran said. "Just relax, let your hair down, and look at poems."
     She enjoys teaching at UNF, loves the campus and is "philosophically in tune" with the way UNF treats its professors, Moran said. She also said she enjoys the freedom to design her own classes.
     In fall 2003, Moran taught three sections of freshman English and said she had a great time. She called her classes "academically rigorous," in which students are "learning to write really well."
     Her students think so, too.
     "Ms. Moran has had a major impact on my writing because she has taught us so much about finding our own style," said Emily Paulette, one of Moran's students helping to organize "unbuttoned." "She is always pushing us to get out of our comfort zones and find some other way to say what we want to say."
     Moran passes on a legacy to her students, having studied for two years with poet Natasha Tretheway and recently releasing her own book, "Clear Soul."
     One-to-two-sentence metaphors and meditations fill the 127-page book about everything from life to death -- and some things that happen in the meantime.
     With this in mind, Moran and her student editors have decided that the first publication of "unbuttoned" will be dedicated to Michael T. Azzarello, a student in Moran's poetry workshop this semester who recently passed away.
     Moran credits the conception of her work to the influences of Tretheway and Taoist principles. These acute observations about reality would not have been possible without either, she said.
     In the front of her book, the math teacher gone poet states her purpose in life and in writing the book: finding a common denominator.
     "Each day I try to watch a little closer, to see humor and wisdom in the smallest things, to present myself without artifice and to record the tiny moments that become the sum of days," Moran said.
     Poetry submissions for "unbuttoned," including the author's full name, phone number and e-mail address, can be sent to mmoran@unf.edu. The deadline is March 22, 2004.