Maria Straw-Çinar is a novelist, performer and teacher.She has written her debut novel The Empty Quarter, whihc was short-listed for Cinnamon Press new fiction award. She has worked in theatre and new writing in Spain, Ireland, Paris and Prague. She performed in French with The Cité International Theatre in Paris: the play, Suicidé by Nicolai Erdman, won the Best Play Award at The Nice Theatre Festival. She lived in the Middle East, where she wrote Deserted, which she later produced on the London Fringe. She has been working closely with Sam Dowling in Praxis Theatre Laboratory for ten years as actor, associate director and artistic director. Her roles include MAUD GONNE MACBRIDE in The Flame and the Stone by Sam Dowling, (London, Ireland and San Franscisco Fringe Festival) , HECUBA in Women and the Trojan Horse (The New York Fringe Festival and Ireland.) With Praxis Theatre Laboratory, she has extended their tour base to the Western and Aran Island, New York and San Francisco Fringe Festivals and continues to push the boundaries of conventional theatre. She is also an experienced Drama teacher and poet. She is currently working on Vinegar Alley, a play dealing with teenage violence.)
Rutting
piercing spikes penetrate the forest dawn
the Stag rises, crackles and ruts,
his guttural roaring upstaging
the trees yearly striptease
nuts, wood, bark and leaf
flutter, quiver and fall
silent witnesses to the need of scent, search and seed
his crown of thorns a halo of might
sharpening up his battered horns
head-stretched antlers in battle-lock
Catapulting towards his red rival
wounding, spitting spittle of skin and kin
triumphant, his mane of thorns harden and rise
his oil deep eyes melt down his prize
She waits, doe-eyed, trembling, expectant.
The cotton wet mist softens the thundering thrust
his humping hammer of bone, meat and gore
her eyes freeze as sudden as a death shot
she falls down upon the deep forest floor
and listens to the ancient patterned dawn.