Origami Poems Project Logo

M.J. Iuppa

MJ IUPPA3smaller M.J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Chariton Review, Tar River Poetry, Blueline, The Prose Poem Project, and The Centrifugal Eye, among others. 

Recent chapbook As the Crows Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008) and a second full-length collection, Within Reach by Cherry Grove Collections, 2010.  A forthcoming prose chapbook Between Worlds will soon be available from Foothills Publishing.

She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.  She's also the Flash Fiction editor for the Schuykill Valley Journal  - 
her blogsite: (A)stray: One Poet's Conversation.

 

Update Passed away April 27, 2023: Mary Jo (MJ) Iuppa passed peacefully after a five-year battle with ovarian cancer. She died at home with family by her side.

MJ was born in Rochester, NY to Dr. Louis A. and Josephine Iuppa. The youngest of five children, she had two older sisters, Andrea and Karen, and two older brothers, Bruce and Robert. Growing up in the Rochester area, she lived on Knollwood Drive and Edgemere Drive as a child. MJ attended Sacred Heart Academy until it closed in 1968. She then transferred to Our Lady of Mercy.

She attended St. Bonaventure University and completed her BA in English Literature, Journalism and Media Studies at SUNY Empire State College in 1976.

In pursuit of her art and teaching career, she obtained her Master of Arts in Creative Writing from SUNY Brockport in 2000.

She followed her mentors, Judith Kitchen and Stan Rubin, and enrolled in Pacific Lutheran University to obtain her finishing degree, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 2006.


 ►  M.J.'s microchaps & selected poems are available below.

Origami Microchap

Selected Poem(s)

 
Finitude    

Click above title to download PDF microchap

MJ Iuppa CVR Finitude Mar 2019

Cover: Gone Walkabout
by Lauri Burke

 
Every microchap is available
to download for free.

Finitude

 

Night’s forced air leaves
fire to smolder in its pit
like sleep’s barter—
hidden prayer offered
in the veil of smoke
lifting— over-
head

M.J. Iuppa © 2019
 

- first published in Amethyst Review,

November, 2018



The End in Sight

 

To see clearer, I find
a pinhole to peer through:
my pupil dilates in an eye’s
disorder—rivers racing
to a fiery blue sea.

M.J. Iuppa © 2019
 
- being published by
The Bamboo Hut
Everyday, Relief    

Click above title to download PDF microchap

Cover: Captured by Jan Keough
 
Some poems in this collection
have been previously published.
 
Every microchap is available
to download for free.
 

Relief

Rising from bed, the shape
of sleep stays curled in
sheet & pillow comfort—

still warm—begging
you to come back to this
perfect fit.
M.J. Iuppa © 2017

 

 

 

Tulips seen from behind:
poised dancers— red heads tilt
slightly in a slow stir of air.

M.J. Iuppa © 2017
   
Click above title to download PDF microchap 
Cover photo from
rumroadravings.com
 

Snowdrops

Having no hope of spring, I
trudge along a snow-packed
sidewalk with my head down,
careful not to catch my boots
in an icy crack.

 
It’s April Fools and this morning’s
bluster of snow isn’t a hoax.

 
Another day of dreary, I think
wishing I were defiant as snowdrops
sprung open like safety pins left
beneath a small yard’s ragged
evergreen.
M.J. Iuppa © 2014
(First published in Ealain)

 

 

soap bubbles~
subtle worlds quivering
in sun-blue sky

M.J. Iuppa © 2014
   
Click above title to download PDF microchap 
Cover art: Coyote Paints the Night Sky
Yonaka-Yamajo—The Web
-
Acknowledgments
One Star ~ Brevity Poetry Review
Quiet ~ Cyclamens and Swords
The Night’s Discrepancy ~ Northern Cardinal Review
Gazing up ~ Three Line Poetry

Bereft

All night the drone of the highway schooner
scraping black ice off country roads floats

in unsteady light and swirl of snow colliding.
How can weather be scoured away when

a blue mist sulks for hours in the orchard,
lingering over tracks of deer and opossum

that have uncovered icy windfalls?
To survive, one must be aware – coyotes’

glossy breath staggers beneath pines–
their baleful cries echo– rungs of sound

climbing higher and higher. . .
What’s missing? A soul’s departure

only noticed by one of us.
M.J. Iuppa © 2014

 

In February

If for now
snow without wind
floats feather-

light, anointing
this woods
with crystal

talc, glowing
milliseconds
mounting

on lacquered
branches
quiets me

 

M.J. Iuppa © 2014
 
 
Click above title to download PDF microchap 
Cover Art by K. Iuppa
Acknowledgments
"Howden Pond" - Curio
"How Clouds Don't Look" - Brevities
"It Seems So" - Le Mot Juste
 

Howden Pond

Asters, clusters of trembling stars
flourish near the water’s lip, coaxing
those drowsy bumblebees
to mine the last of autumn’s nectar.

Mesmerized by how deeply they delve
into ripeness– how their tongues insinuate
love–my heart’s pang, wondering
which will survive?

M.J. Iuppa © 2013

 

Revelation

 

Mere thought,
thinking of you.

·

No Revelation

Bickering breath
on car window.


M.J. Iuppa © 2013