print previewback DAVID HUDDLE & MEIGHAN L. SHARP
from Effusive Greetings to Friends
Not Heaven, Just Death, Please |
|
 |
The Ms. Hicks poems are a selection from a book-length manuscript, all featuring the newly dead Ms. Hicks, who first showed up in one of Meighan Sharp’s poems two years ago, throwing a rotten cantaloupe at some teenagers. It’s been our habit, since working together (four years ago at Hollins) to trade manuscripts and critical responses (often in the early morning hours) and, after Meighan had written and sent quite a few Ms. Hicks poems to David Huddle, he decided Ms. H. was calling to him as well.
When we started putting the book together, we made a couple of decisions that still seem right to us: Individual poems should not indicate which of us had written the piece, but the order of the poems should alternate by author. We felt that some of poems spoke to one another, while others did not, and we decided that was just fine because the overall book seemed unified. Ms. H was our third collaborator, so when we completed the project, we had the sense that there were three of us who brought her life (and afterlife) into being. 
Contributor’s notes: David Huddle
Contributor’s notes: Meighan L. Sharp