June (2025) Update from MEH
My monthly (?) missive on all things MEH
Random Thoughts & Writing Prompts
For the end of the school year, the beginning of uncertainty for many in my life due to changes in health, career, family, friends, and myriad other impacts and effects, I submit this poem from Brad Davis. It’s been on my mind.
How to Wait for the Second Coming
Dust and vacuum, because the light
is already here. Between shaking out
this throw rug and that, reverence
the forsythia. Sounds crazy, but bake
rounds of shortcake for the neighbors.
Tie a blue ribbon on the one
you will give to the unhappy widower
who lied to you and yelled at your kids.
At work, spend equal time
with random coworkers and breathe
slowly, savoring each breath the way
you savor each course of a holiday meal.
This is the gift he sends before he comes.~ Brad Davis
What are you waiting for? What are you doing in the meantime?
Poetry Collections I’ve Recently Finished/Currently Reading
On the Way to Putnam ~ Brad Davis
Latest News and Publications
Summer Plans
My summer will be busy with literary things I can now announce.
Once again, I am a Kenyon Review Educator Residency Recipient, but this time it will be in creative nonfiction. I will be spending a week(+) in June being paid to hone my CNF skills and work on my CNF manuscript in progress.
I also have a week-long residency in July at the T.S. Eliot House in Gloucester, MA. The plan is to work diligently on a poetry manuscript (or two).
In August, I’m judging the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize for the New England Poetry Club. Submissions close on July 31st.
Recent Publications
My ekphrastic poem “‘victuals’ and ‘victim’ do not share a Latin root” was published in The Prose Poem. It is after Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s wax sculpture Slave Ship.
Still trying to claim this creative nonfiction writer title, my flash CNF story “The Quiet Part” now appears in the latest issue of In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction.
Despite a HEALTHY number of rejections in the past month, especially for my fiction, I have recent poetry acceptances The Chaos Section Poetry Project, The Lit Nerds, The Radical Teacher, Rituals, Star 82 Review, Tidings, and a few others.
Recent Events
Wednesday, May 7, 7:00 PM 8:00 PM~ Thursday Poets Reading Series
I’ll be reading alongside Michelle Richardson (AKA Michelle de la Poetica) at The Galleries at Lynn Arts (GALA).
Saturday, May 17, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM ~ Solstice Launch Party Reading I will be joining Jabari Adsim and Alexis Rizzuto at Newtonville Books to celebrate and launch the latest issue launch of Solstice Literary Magazine.
Saturday, May 31 - MassPoetry Festival Panels
Goin’ Up Yonder: Religion in Black Poetics with Quintin Collins, Sarah Kersey, and Porsha Olayiwola.
The Night Office: Embracing the Creative Power of Darkness with Hannah Larrabee, Nina MacLaughlin, and Carolyn Oliver.