Melissa Huff explores free verse and metered poetry, enjoying the structure as well as the patterns of sound and rhythm inherent in both. She feeds her poetry from the power and mystery of the natural world and the ways in which body, nature, and spirit intertwine.
Her poem “Talking with Trees” garnered a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination, while many of her other works have earned recognition in local and national contests. An advocate of the power of poetry presented out loud, Melissa twice won awards in the BlackBerry Peach Prizes for Poetry: Spoken and Heard, sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS). She has read her work at literary festivals and private parties, in bookstores, art galleries and classrooms, in coffee shops, pubs, museums and libraries, on Zoom, in an arboretum, and in the rotunda of New Mexico’s State Capitol building.
Melissa’s poetry has appeared in many journals, including Blue Heron Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, RockPaperPoem, Gyroscope Review, Persimmon Tree, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, and Amethyst Review. Several anthologies and other collections also include her work, such as The Best of Halfway Down the Stairs, 2015–2019, Encore: Prize Poems 2022 (NFSPS), Northern Colorado Writers’ Chiarascuro: Anthology of Virtue & Vice, and Thin Places & Sacred Spaces from Amethyst Press.
Melissa is active with her workshop group, Plumb Line Poets, and enjoys membership in Poets & Patrons of Chicago, Lighthouse Writers in Denver, Colorado Poets Center, Illinois State Poetry Society, and Columbine Poets of Colorado. Having grown up in New Jersey and California, she now splits her time between Illinois and Colorado.
Paperback: 92 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (October 13, 2025)