Hi, I’m Megan McDermott! I am the author of poetry collection Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems (Fernwood Press) & two chapbooks, Woman as Communion (Game Over Books) and Prayer Book for Contemporary Dating (Ethel Zine and Micro-Press). When I am not writing, I am busy serving a congregation as an Episcopal priest in Western Massachusetts. Follow along for writing news (I’ll share newly published poems, book reviews, updates on books, etc.) as well as thoughts on poetry, faith, and spirituality, and the intersection of all those things.
Most of published writings have something to say about faith, the Divine, and how those relate to our REAL (not sanitized) lives; they also often speak about the struggles of pursuing the Divine in a context that may be patriarchal, or, at the least, be carrying some severely patriarchal baggage. One of my greatest hopes is that my poetry will help women give themselves permission to name truths about their lives, their faith, their doubts, their desires, and their relationships that they may have been encouraged to repress within churches or other spaces in their lives.
The title “Suggested Blessing” comes from one of the poems in my chapbook Woman as Communion, published by Game Over Books in 2022.
While the perspective of this newsletter is certainly informed by the various things I name as blessing in this poem, the pairing of “Suggested” and “Blessing” is what resonated with me when I started thinking of what this Substack might offer. So much of my approach to church, faith, spirituality, etc. — and perhaps to poetry also? — is about offering possibility rather than speaking in mandates (though I also think there’s room for more confident declaration + proclamation too!); about engaging in language like “I wonder…,” “Perhaps…,” “Maybe,” or “What if?” (specifically the hopeful “What if?”…I think we all are well-skilled in the anxious “What if?” on our own). So I hope that whatever this newsletter becomes, it’s a place that carries forward that spirit of possibility and suggestion. So on one hand, the “Suggested” aspect of this “Suggested Blessing” newsletter relate to my suggestions of where we might encounter blessing, or beauty, or even God. But I also leave the title open-ended. The “Suggested Blessing” may be the blessing that is being suggested by someone or something else — lurking in a poem I’ve read and loved and want to share; suggested by a movie or an artist; suggested by something in creation; suggested again perhaps by God Herself.
I hope you will stick around and explore the possibilities with me. Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.
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