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    This Writer Penned A Poem For Each Night She Went Over The Manhattan Bridge

    "I rode across that bridge twice most days and would drink in the light, the view, the distance, each time it was available to me."

    Mary Austin Speaker is a 38-year-old poet currently living in Minneapolis, MN. Before moving to Minnesota, she spent 12 years living in New York City, where she fell in love with the Manhattan Bridge.

    When Speaker found out she'd be leaving New York, she decided to start writing poems during her daily commute on the subway ride across the bridge. The collection of poems is now a book, titled The Bridge.

    "I rode across that bridge twice most days and would drink in the light, the view, the distance, each time it was available to me," Speaker explained. "And when it was dark, the quiet, the distant lights of the city, usually obscured by the city itself."

    The author said her affinity for the bridge came from growing up in Texas, "where you can see for miles in any direction from so many places."

    Speaker says the reaction to the book, from current New Yorkers and people she knows who used to live in the city, is positive.

    "If I have any hope, I guess it's that it might temper cynicism a little bit, or work around it to a softer place."

    The Bridge is on sale now.