My very first publication!

Today was a beautiful Easter Sunday on April 5, 2026. I am 37 years old. I discovered a poem I wrote was selected to be published in Open Spirit at Edwards Church’s Facebook in celebration of National Poetry Month! This is my first time having anything I have written be chosen among other pieces for publication! It meant so much. I am a girl who has always read and written privately but lacked the courage to submit anything for publication or enroll in a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in her twenties. This quiet little publication gave me the bravery to make an “author website” and commit to writing a manuscript of a bildungsroman to submit to an independent press by Eastertide next year. Here is my poem:

“Cushing Park”

By Noelle Lee, March 23, 2026

A frosty early spring morning in the outlines of Framingham, Massachusetts,

the dew beads and forms a forgiving halo around the severe grass.

Sunlight in a minor key focuses in and out, a bare tree of fractals shimmers

like a mirage in the fields, sparrows rejoice in the dust underneath.

My unassuming chestnut dog, a mutt from a shelter, meanders through 

the track, ragged ears and drying nose absorbing the sun.

Children break through the silence, shouting and echoing, chasing

a ball rolling hesitantly towards Penny’s way, and she is good, she sits.

I am overjoyed by her obedience and cry out in delight, hugging

her and pinning her to my chest, and she sighs, resigned.