from River Heron Poetry Prize final judge, Shankar Narayan: “This poem unfurls its conflicting emotions like the fronds of some unknown fern, leading to both despair and elation in equal measure. The initial evocation of a three-way split personality lends the poem power and urgency from the very beginning, yet its narrative voice moves forward with a light touch, taking the reader along on its enacted emotional polarities and ultimately, winning them over. The poem’s direct voice can be devastating at times (“[f]ollow me down the stairs to the place of weeping”) but is unflinchingly honest regardless. The poem’s struggle is specific, yet it stands in for so many of our struggles with our bodies, our relationships, and our selves, particularly in the current pandemic world. And in the end, the poem’s claim of connection with and succor within natural spaces and non-human beings reminds us of the powerful healing to be found there.”
Meghan Sterling lives in Portland, Maine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Rust & Moth, SWIMM, The Night Heron Barks, Cider Press Review, Inflectionist Review, Sky Island Journal, Westchester Review, Pine Hills Review, Mom Egg Review, Menacing Hedge and many others. She is Associate Poetry Editor of the Maine Review, and winner of Sweet Literary's 2021 annual poetry contest. Her collection These Few Seeds is out now from Terrapin Books.
