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.
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► M.J.'s microchaps & selected poems are available below.
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Origami Microchap |
Selected Poem(s) | |
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| Finitude | ||
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Click above title to download PDF microchap
Cover: Gone Walkabout —
Every microchap is available
to download for free.
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Finitude
Night’s forced air leaves • M.J. Iuppa © 2019
- first published in Amethyst Review, November, 2018 |
The End in Sight
To see clearer, I find •
M.J. Iuppa © 2019
- being published by
The Bamboo Hut
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| Everyday, Relief | ||
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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.
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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
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Tulips seen from behind: •
M.J. Iuppa © 2017
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Click above title to download PDF microchap
 Cover photo from
rumroadravings.com •
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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)
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soap bubbles~ •
M.J. Iuppa © 2014
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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
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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
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In February If for now light, anointing talc, glowing on lacquered
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M.J. Iuppa © 2014
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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
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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
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Revelation
Mere thought, · No Revelation Bickering breath •
M.J. Iuppa © 2013 |
