Greetings, friends!
Welcome to a safe space in this roiling world. On a continuous loop through anxiety, despair, hope, and courage, I find that I need daily reminders that we as individuals still have power, that we can make a difference within the suffering. I come back, again and again, to the act of creation, as a force of generation and renewal. Whether we create only for ourselves, or for another, each act performs as a spark, igniting some new thought or idea, action or reaction.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about rest and self-care, not just because my family has recently emerged from a week with the flu, but also because we, as a country, are in for a long fight these next four years, and we must find ways to sustain our energy, health, and momentum.
Lately, I’ve found inspiration in these words by Dan Savage:
We need to pay attention. We need to fight the fight, but we need to spend as much time as we can over the next four years with friends and lovers doing the things that bring us joy.
Anyone who tells you that making time for joy is a distraction or a betrayal has no idea what they're talking about.
During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.
It didn't look like we would win then. It didn't look like we would win marriage equality in 2004, but we did. Right now it doesn't feel like we can win, but we can. But only if we fight... and dance. And me? You know what I'm bringing to the dance and the fight? Both my wolves.
[excerpted from Daniel Quinn’s transcript of Dan Savage’s podcast]
Together, we will not disappear into the gray. We can still take a walk, take a nap, read a poem, write a poem, dance in our kitchens, march in our streets, volunteer in our communities, call our representatives, unleash our wolves.
We must continue to catalog our losses and celebrate our successes, refusing to let the substance of our daily lives go unnoticed.
Read on for what I’m still celebrating from 2024.
CELEBRATIONS (2024)
March: The Village of Mamaroneck Arts Council hosted a book launch party for my debut poetry chapbook First Father (Bottlecap Press). Many thanks to Elizabeth O’Rourke for hosting the event and leading an engaging and thoughtful discussion (and bringing the cheese and prosecco!).
April: I joined the MER Literary team as a Book Reviews co-editor, alongside Laura Dennis. Thanks to Marjorie Tesser for bringing me on board! I get the privilege of curating our monthly Bookshelf list, featuring recently published, relevant books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
June: I was appointed as the Village of Mamaroneck Poet Laureate (2024-2026) and launched my Poetry Walks program, offering poetry workshops through our community’s summer camp, library, and schools. Thank you to the VOM Arts Council and co-chair Elizabeth O’Rourke for making this outreach possible!
September: Anne Graue and I launched the 3rd consecutive year of our Poetry Craft Collective — a group of nine women focused on the craft and creation of poetry, meeting biweekly to discuss our work and prove time and again that poetry is essential.
December: I completed my first full-length poetry manuscript!! Many thanks to Megan Merchant of Shiversong for her brilliant editorial advice. I’m aiming high and submitting to book contests this year. Keep your fingers crossed!
December: I received THREE PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATIONS! My first ever! Such a surprise to get three nominations within three days. What a way to end the year! Thank you to the editors who nominated these poems:
“On My 47th Birthday” – Whale Road Review
“Miscarriage” – tiny wren lit
“Consider the Pendulum” – Rise Up Review
POET LAUREATE NEWS
As a continuation of my service as Mamaroneck Poet Laureate, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be returning to the Village of Mamaroneck Day Camp this summer to teach poetry workshops to over 300 students, ranging in age from pre-K to 10th-graders. This outreach was a gratifying success last year, and I’m thrilled to be partnering with the VOM Parks & Recreation department once again!
If you would like to host, sponsor, or volunteer at a poetry workshop or event, please let me know! melissajoplinhigley@gmail.com
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
My poem “Phantom Nipple Burn” is available online in The Penn Review.
This is my first publication in this long-running journal from the University of Pennsylvania. This poem is one of several written about my body post-mastectomy.
My poem “Icarus, Falling, Blesses His Mother” is available online in the E-book collection Myth and Metaphor, published by Cosmic Daffodil Journal (Issue IX). Click on the poem link above and scroll down to page 51 to read the poem.
This poem reimagines a moment in the Icarus myth, with the mother as Icarus’s focus, in an attempt to investigate and subvert the patriarchal system that so often causes the suffering of mothers and their children.
My micro chapbook We Shake & Seek is available as a free PDF printable at Origami Poems Project.
This six-poem collection explores long-term love and how it shifts and morphs over time. If you come to an in-person event of mine, I’ll give you a free copy printed on gorgeous mulberry paper!
To read these and other poems published online, including individually published poems from First Father, please visit: www.melissajoplinhigley.com.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
My poem “Ode to My Scars” is forthcoming from Crab Orchard Review in May 2025.
This poem has been looking for a home for two years! I’m thrilled it landed at this incredible journal affiliated with Southern Illinois University, where my parents earned their graduate degrees in the 70s and 80s, and I roller-skated along the campus sidewalks.
Stay tuned for a link this spring!
BOOKS FOR PURCHASE
Cover Art: “Red Pear” by Terrie Elaine Joplin, watercolor
First Father is a 24-poem, thematic collection about my biological father, whom I never knew, who suffered from alcoholism, and who died in a motor vehicle accident when I was seven. These poems are based on research I conducted with his surviving family members and friends, in an attempt to understand who he really was, beyond my limited idea of him as I was growing up.
***Order your copy of First Father here for only $10.00***
Bottlecap Press pays its authors royalties, even for chapbooks, so every sale helps me recoup the cost of literary journal and contest submissions. Thank you for your support!
For a Friend Anthology (Paperback, 2024)
£12.00
ISBN: 9781916632110
An anthology of poetry and prose on the theme of friendship.
My poem “Elegy (for Jill)” is on p.33.
Order your copy here.
Thanks for reading, friends. Take care of yourselves and each other. I hope to see you soon!