Merrill Elizabeth Gray's Ground State is a poetry collection from snapshots of her life. Merrill shares a sometimes dark but also humorous look at the stages of her life as a young woman and mother traipsing through marriage, divorce, grief, and loss. Gray's memory poems reflect on a sometimes-dissimilar memory, reveal an unfamiliar sacrament and share a glimpse of how she endured this strangling life. Merrill Elizabeth Gray's writing has appeared in Madville Publishing: The Runaway Anthology, Fleas on the Dog Journal, Grain the Journal of Eclectic Writing, Temenos Press, Silver Birch Press, Birds we pile loosely, S/Tick, Blue Skies Poetry, Crazy Pineapple Press, Fieldstone Review, Four Ties Lit Review, Spring vol viii, Misfitmagazine, Sugar Mule Literary Magazine, and Joy, Interrupted an anthology on motherhood and loss. Merrill has been a teacher for over 30 years. She is a mother to three children and four grandchildren.