Audrey McHugh

My literary career was inspired eighty years ago, before television and before children were micromanaged by their parents. Saturday mornings found me walking nine blocks to the Ozone Park library for their Saturday morning cupcakes with readings of my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries.

Our house was full of books, my father’s tastes more sophisticated than mine. Wednesday mornings he would visit museums and old book shops to purchase second-hand tomes like,”Grant Takes Command”, Thomas Jefferson Anthologies and,” Winston Churchill’s series,”The Hinge of Fate.” I still have these books in my library.

I started my own collection when my high school closed in 1954 with the “The Complete Works of Shakespeare,” Vol 1& 2. When motherhood allowed, we would enjoy another of my Dad’s talents, painting and exhibiting in local art shows. it wasn’t until my senior years that I started to write poetry, the language of the soul.

My last poetry book was “Tree of Metamorphoses” in 2021, “For every Field” will be published by WIPF&Stock this winter.

How my Dad would be pleased and proud that his childhood example, years later, would produce this delayed response in me.

Thank You Dad.

“For Every Field” is my tribute to the pulsating beat of humanity,. in our loves and in our lives. It reflects my care and concern for our diminishing environment. Today threats to our well being are lurking in the underbrush waiting to be blown or ignited by forces beyond our control. Hopefully we can turn wasted fields into flowering meadows. I hope these poems of family bonds, the beauty of wildlife, death and fulfillment will linger in our hearts longer than the Cedars of Lebanon.