Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Hush

I’m pleased that my poem, ” Hush”, was published in Amethyst Review today.   Hush Is it by aging alone that I landed in this sparse, harsh forest, where most branches are sharp, all bark is sandpaper, and even the birds., diligently practicing their scales, can sometimes shake my equilibrium, scrape my eardrums with their […]

It Goes Like This

You smile down on me from a slightly precarious perch on the shelf above my messy desk. It’s my favorite photo of you—young and exuberantly happy, arms flung wide, dressed in colorful layers that reflect your signature style. I’d never seen this picture until your Memorial Service, but I loved it immediately. My second favorite […]

A 2022 Story

  There was a little stream—more of a rivulet, really—that dribbled and dripped and murmured along through a swath of untamed land.  Many moons and suns cast their light upon her waters as she found her way around boulders and hills and the wide trunks of venerable trees. She was free of any precepts that […]

Why Poetry Matters

I’m so pleased to share that my poem “Nobody” was published in Thimble Literary Journal today. You can read it by clicking on this link: https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2022/08/09/nobody/ My writing process is anything but logical. Sometimes it feels as if the poems begin as embryos planted in the unseen folds of my heart. Some grow in predicable […]

Slack Satori

satori \ sə-ˈtȯr-ē n (Buddhism) Zen Buddhism the state of sudden indescribable intuitive enlightenment  [from Japanese]• Hmmm. Tell a creative (poet, artist, musician, sculptor) that something is indescribable, and chances are they will receive your words as a delightful challenge! I’m happy to share that my poem, Slack Satori, was published today in Writing in […]

A little more “Pub Cred”.

One of my goals as a creative person is to put more of my work out into the world. If writing and art-making gets short shrift in the bigger picture of my life as Bink’s mom and chief advocate—and it does—the amount of time I spend on submissions is barely worth a mention. All writers […]

BEGIN AGAIN

BEGIN AGAIN “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Begin again is the dry brush dipped into water. The soft tip […]

Pentimento

pentimento noun pen·ti·men·to | \ ˌpen-tə-ˈmen-(ˌ)tō Definition of pentimento A reappearance in a painting of an original drawn or painted element which was eventually painted over by the artist The canvas: my face in the mirror, fifty eight years familiar with this world. Five or six, roaming like the free-range child I was, I caught […]

Tender

Tender. Unless I am speaking of meat, which I mostly don’t, the very word owns its ness, as in, what is tender evokes tenderness, and what calls that forth in me is that which I am drawn towards, or s/he whom I draw close, or want to. Draw close,touch, be connected with, and to— it’s […]

Mothering Outside the Lines

The Bus Stop Moms From my morning window I would watch as they huddled casually, tossed light conversation back and forth, an occasional eye towards their kids who played and laughed together, finding sticks, tracing shapes and letters in the dirt. After the big yellow bus swallowed their chattering children, the moms would often stay […]