About
US
Supporting and bringing you poetry...
at its most fun, tender, magical and inspired....
Emily Dickinson’s actual writing table and chair, on display at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Click here to learn more.
Photo credit: THE EMILY DICKINSON ROOM, HOUGHTON LIBRARY. WILLIAM MERCER, PHOTOGRAPHER
Poetry Mesa is all things poetry.
Launched in 2021, Poetry Mesa is a global community that celebrates poets and poetry, with a menu of delicious readings, events, contests, and other resources to serve poets and poetry lovers everywhere. Our preference will be for the fun, the magical, the exuberant and the inspired.
Why do we call it Poetry Mesa? “Mesa” is both an English and a Spanish word – so fitting, because our founders straddle two countries, the USA and Mexico. We intend to honor multiple languages. We will be multilingual and multinational.
“Mesa” is the Spanish word for “table” – a place where people meet with family and friends, where babies are born, where we seek shelter, where we feast, where we celebrate, where we break bread. A place where we come together. Everyone is welcome at our poetry table!
mesa (n.)
From the Spanish mesa, table. Also “high table land” in the U.S. Southwest; a broad and flat region between canyons or rivers. From the Latin “mensa,” a table for sacred offerings or for meals (source of Romanian “masa,” Old French “moise”). Possibly the feminine of the past participle “mensus” (“measured”). An Umbrian “mefa” was the sacrificial object, perhaps cake, on the table; in Latin, the meaning shifted from the offering itself to the object on which the offerings were placed.
[Source: Michiel Arnoud Cor de Vaan, linguist, from the Online Etymology Dictionary]
Founders
Judyth Hill
Judyth Hill, poet, author, teacher, and editor, lives in the aspen-swept mountains of Colorado; her heart also resides in San Miguel de Allende and Sapello, New Mexico. Her nine published poetry books include Dazzling Wobble and Tzimtzum. Judyth has co-authored cookbooks and textbooks; she was the Santa Fe, NM, restaurant critic for Albuquerque Journal, and creator/owner of Santa Fe’s premier bakery, The Chocolate Maven. Judyth conducts poetry and memoir workshops at conferences worldwide. She authored poetry curricula for the Georgia O’Keeffe and Folk Art Museums in Santa Fe and is the poet-in-residence at schools throughout the U.S. She offers classes, manuscript editing, and mentoring online and leads global WildWriting Culinary Adventures. Her internationally acclaimed poem, “Wage Peace,” published worldwide, is set to music, performed, and recorded by national choirs and orchestras. The St. Helena Examiner describes her as “energy with skin”; The Denver Post calls her “a tigress with a pen.” Educated at Sarah Lawrence College, she studied with Robert Bly, Galway Kinnell, and ecologist Dolores LaChapelle. www.judythhill.com
Catherine Marenghi
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Catherine Marenghi is the author of Unfurled: Love Poems (2023) and Breaking Bread: Poems (2020). A native of Massachusetts, happily transplanted to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, she has been active in the local literary community and has served on the board of the San Miguel Poetry Café. An award-winning poet, she received first-place honors in separate contests judged by acclaimed poets Richard Blanco and Jennifer Clement. Her poems also twice received first-place honors from the Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in literary journals worldwide. She also authored "Glad Farm: A Memoir" (2016), a story of stark poverty and resilience, set on a former gladiolus farm; President Jimmy Carter called it “inspiring.” Her new historical novel "Our Good Name" was published in June 2022. She holds an M.A., B.A. summa cum laude in English from Tufts University, where she studied with Denise Levertov and X.J. Kennedy. www.marenghi.com