Photo by Graham Cullen Mount St. Mary’s University teacher Sister Anne Higgins will have her fourth book of poetry published Nov. 8.
	Book details Sister Anne Higgins' new book of poetry, "How the Hand Behaves," will be available after Nov. 30 at the Mount St. Mary's University bookstore. It can be ordered now at www.finishinglinepress.com and at Amazon.com after Nov. 30. Cost: $12

The Mount St. Mary's University teacher leads classes in English, theology and poetry. As a member of the Daughters of Charity, she lives her faith on a daily basis. As a teacher at a Catholic university, she gets to share that faith with her students while getting them excited about the written word, another passion of hers.

"I've been writing my whole life," Higgins said Thursday. "I probably started writing poems in fourth grade, just regular little rhyming poems."

Her fourth book of poetry, "How the Hand Behaves," is set to be published Nov. 8.

Between fourth grade and the present, she found and nurtured her voice as a writer. Her first poem as a child was a simple one about Thanksgiving and pilgrims, she said. Her poetry today is filled with symbolism, intrigue, mystery and humor. She makes the most of every word, and paints detailed images or conveys complicated emotions with three- and four-word phrases.

Her rules of writing are simple, she said: Show, don't tell, and make every word count.

"You grow into your own voice as a poet," Higgins said. "You develop a style that is your own."

In her early days of writing, she imitated poets she liked and admired. From those exercises came her own voice.

"I still on occasion use rhyme, but I also use form and write in free verse," she said. "It really depends on what the poem needs and what the subject deserves."

Higgins received her undergraduate degree in English from St. Joseph's College in Emmitsburg in 1970. At the time, St. Joseph's was a women's college while the Mount educated men. In 1973, St. Joseph's closed and the Mount went coed.

"Coming back to the Mount in 1999 was like a homecoming," the poet said. "It's wonderful to be back here -- I love Emmitsburg , and I love teaching here."

Higgins, now 61, was a high school English teacher before joining the Daughters of Charity 30 years ago.

In addition to teaching English, the freshman seminar and a theology course, she also leads an introduction to poetry class.

"It's not about writing poetry, it's about studying it," Higgins said. "It's about analysis and understanding what the poet wrote -- understanding helps poetry become accessible."

In writing her own poetry, she finds inspiration in many ways.

"Like many poets, I'll sometimes see something, or read something, and write something about it later," she said. "And I'll write about anything."

A perusal of her third book, "Pick It Up and Read," proves that point. Poems discuss topics as diverse as saliva, dry skin, her childhood food preferences -- stale Peeps made the list -- and hitchhiking are discussed with wit, irony and mystique.

She considers her poetry talent to be a gift.

"I tried to write fiction, and I can't do it -- I don't have that kind of imagination," she said. "The gift God gave me was this kind of imagination -- to see things and make connections conveyed by my poems."

Writing is not a compulsion, she writes in spurts, she said.

"I'm not very disciplined, and I probably need to be more disciplined," Higgins said.

"When we use our gifts, it glorifies God -- just like a bird singing glorifies God."