Print & Online Contributors' Notes, Verse Wisconsin 101
Colleen Abel is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a former Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her manuscript, “The Swimming of Witches” was a finalist for the Four Way Books Intro Prize, the New Issues Poetry Prize, and others. She is a doctoral candidate at UW-Milwaukee.
Grant Adams’s father grew up in Iola, where he learned to hunt and fish, trapping muskrats in order to buy school clothes. His mother, a first generation Finnish-American, was born and raised on a family farm in Eagle River. She recently returned home when Grant interred her ashes there. “Beginning to End” is Grant’s first published poem.
Antler, former poet laureate of Milwaukee, is the author of Selected Poems, Ever-Expanding Wilderness, Deathrattles vs. Comecries, and Exclamation Points ad Infinitum! His work appears in the recent anthologies Poets Against the War; Poetic Voices Without Borders 2; Best Gay Poetry 2008; Comeback Wolves: Welcoming the Wolf Home and Wilderness Blessings.
Judith Arcana’s chapbook, 4th Period English, is a collection of poems in the voices of high school students talking—and arguing—about immigration. A native of the Great Lakes region who lived briefly and visited repeatedly in Milwaukee and other Wisconsin towns, notably with her dear friend, Wisconsin native Lois Nowicki, she lives in Oregon. Visit juditharcana.com.
Sharon Auberle has returned to her Midwestern roots after years of living in the Southwest, and she’s very happy to be residing full time in Door County. Besides poetry, photography and paper arts are her passions. Samples may be found on her website, Mimi’s Golightly Café. She is the author of two recent books: Saturday Nights at the Crystal Ball and Crow Ink.
James Babbs lives and dies a little each day in the small town where he grew up. He works for the government but doesn’t like to talk about it. He likes getting drunk and writing and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference because both of them can be very intoxicating. Recent poems haveappeared in Gutter Eloquence, Fight These Bastards, and Song of the San Joaquin Quarterly.
Jane-Marie Bahr was born, raised, educated and employed in Wisconsin. Her poetry publications include Hummingbird, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Free Verse, Poesy, Poetry Motel, the WFOP’s Museletter, and others. She is currently working on a series of poems, Seasons of Grief: The Gerry Poems, and adjusting to life as a widow.
Judy Barisonzi has been a Wisconsin resident since 1966, and she now lives among the lakes and woods of northwest Wisconsin. Semi-retired from teaching English at the University of Wisconsin Colleges, she gives workshops in creative writing and memoir writing, participates in several local writing groups, and publishes poems in local and national magazines.
Melodie Barker’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines like Yellow Medicine Review, Windmills, and Tales of the Unanticipated. She lives near Flint, Michigan. Annually, she takes her children on the Badger car ferry across the lake to Wisconsin so they can attend a science fiction convention in Madison.
Ruth Bavetta’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, North American Review, Nerve Cowboy, and Atlanta Review, among others. In 2001 she visited near Rhinelander and discovered that the Big Woods of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Wisconsin look nothing like the redwood forests of California. It took a serious wrench of the mind’s eye to get that cabin into the proper landscape—green, leafy and crammed with growth.
C Mehrl Bennett’s current work focuses on computer manipulation of scanned found objects, digital photos, collage, or artwork, often adding visual poetry to these digital images either by digital means or as part of the physical framing process. She is technical facilitator, book designer, and editorial consultant to Luna Bisonte Prods (www.lulu.com/lunabisonteprods). Matthew Stolte hosted a room full of her visual poetry during the 2009 Open Studios weekend event in Madison.
F.J. Bergmann is living in Wisconsin for the fourth or fifth time. She dwells in what is shown as Leeds Center on the Wisconsin map but has no other official existence, in the Poynette postal delivery area (Arlington is across the road), and, it turns out, in the DeForest school district. A good deal of her time is spent in Madison.
Lauren Berry received an MFA from the University Of Houston, where she served as poetry editor for Gulf Coast. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Cream City Review, Whiskey Island, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. This year she accepted the Diane Middlebrook poetry fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, where she will work on her first collection, Mosquito Fever Speeches.
CL Bledsoe is the author of two collections, _____(Want/Need) and Anthem. A chapbook, Goodbye To Noise, is available online at www.righthandpointing.com/bledsoe. His story, "Leaving the Garden," was selected as a Notable Story of 2008 for Story South's Million Writer's Award. He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine (http://www.ghotimag.com), and blogs at http://clbledsoe.blogspot.com.
Todd Boss’s debut poetry collection, Yellowrocket, was published in 2008 by W. W. Norton. Todd’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. For the past five years, Todd has been the Director of External Affairs at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. He lives in north suburban Saint Paul with his wife and two children. He is also the editor of Flurry*, an online journal of "*wintry poetry, intermittently, from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin."
Joseph Briggs received his bachelor's in English from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 2007. He then moved to Madison with his wife, where he enjoys all the artistic currents the city has to offer. “Calculation” is his first published poem.
Lisa Marie Brodsky has worked with Alzheimer residents since 2005. Her poetry has appeared in The North American Review, The Southern Ocean Review, and Born Magazine, among others. In 2008, Parallel Press published her chapbook on working with Alzheimer's residents, We Nod Our Dark Heads. Her full-length collection, Motherlung, is forthcoming from Salmon Publishing. Originally from Chicago, she’s resided in Madison for eight years, recently married and has three beautiful step-children.
John L. Campbell started free-lance writing for business and trade magazines in 1995. His book, Writing in Retirement www.writingretirement.com, explains his evolution into fiction and poetry along with the profiles of thirteen other writers-in-retirement. His latest poetry chapbook is entitled Smelling Older.
Cyrus Campen has a BS in zoology from Wheaton College, an MA in European History from Northern Illinois University, and an MA in English from Northern Illinois University and Oxford University, England. He has taught in public schools and universities in Illinois. He currently resides in Wausau, Wisconsin.
Robin Chapman’s newest book is Abundance, winner of the Cider Press Book Editors’ Award. Her poems have appeared recently in Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, and Spillway, and online in qarrtsiluni, Poemeleon, and Umbrella. [Abundance is reviewed in Verse Wisconsin Online.]
Jan Chronister currently teaches English part-time at three colleges, which leaves little time for writing. She looks forward to summer and the School of the Arts in Rhinelander where this poem was written. [Chronister’s chapbook, Target Practice, is reviewed in this issue.]
Lisa J. Cihlar is Wisconsin born and raised. There was a short stint in Illinois, but that was done for love and she convinced him to come back north with her. Recently, poems have been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Qarrtsiluni, and Wisconsin People & Ideas. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and selected to be part of The Other Voices International Project.
Kay Cosgrove 's work has appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry, Chickenpinata, and SP Quill Quarterly, and Abbeywood Anthologies. She is a first year poet working toward her M.F.A. at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and one day hopes to receive her PhD from the University of Wisconsin.
Among her many other awards, Barbara Crooker is the recipient of the 2006 Ekphrastic Poetry Award from Rosebud. Her most recent book is Line Dance (Word Press 2008), winner of the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. She lives and writes in rural PA, but has a fondness for Wisconsin based on the lovely audiences she encountered in Madison and Waukesha, and the excellence of writing that she found when she judged the Lorine Niedecker Prize. Her website is www.barbaracrooker.com.
Philip Dacey is the author of ten full-length books of poems, including Vertebrae Rosaries: 50 Sonnets (Red Dragonfly Press, 2009). His awards include three Pushcart Prizes, a Discovery Award from the New York YM-YWHA’s Poetry Center, and various fellowships. His website is www.philipdacey.com. Over the years, he has given readings in many places in Wisconsin, most recently at the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland College. He lived for 35 years across the border in Minnesota.
Alice D'Alessio, Middleton, WI, is the author of three books of poetry and one biography: Uncommon Sense; the Biography of Marshall Erdman. Her poetry book A Blessing of Trees was winner of the 2004 Posner Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and her 2009 book, Days We Are Given was first place winner in the Earth's Daughters chapbook contest. She is contributing editor to Woodlands and Prairies Magazine.
Bruce Dethlefsen has three volumes of poetry. His latest is Breather, published by Fireweed Press. Bruce is the secretary of Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
Alixa Doom has published in numerous magazines and some of her poems have appeared in anthologies such as County Lines (Loonfeather Press, 2008). She has lived in the Minnesota River Valley for many years. Her favorite vacations still include crossing the Mississippi River to meander the back roads of the neighboring state of Wisconsin.
Karl Elder, Poet in Residence at Lakeland College, is among five Chad Walsh Award recipients who will read in Denver come April at an AWP session in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Beloit Poetry Journal. His most recent volume is Gilgamesh at the Bellagio from The National Poetry Review Award Book Series.
Araceli Esparza was born in Madison, WI. Her parents were migrant farm workers from Guanajuato, Mexico, whom she still gathers her strength from. She currently participates in the women of color poetry group, Hibiscus. Her writing fluxes from observation to hip hop to cultural translations, where beyond language, she translates the new American culture.
Yvonne M. Estrada is a Southern CA native who lives, works , and writes poetry in Los Angeles. Her step-dad (who has been her Dad for over 25 years) has a friend who visits him yearly, and who hails from Milwaukee. John Sierpinski is his name, and Yvonne discovered a few years back that he too is a poet, a pretty cool connection to Wisconsin.
Kathleen Eull holds a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has served as an advisory editor for Emergency Press. Her work has appeared in The Emergency Almanac, Echoes, KNOCK and pith. In addition, an interview with NY-based poet Scott Zieher appears in his second book IMPATIENCE (Emergency Press, 2009).
Fabu is Madison’s third Poet Laureate. She has a published chapbook, In Our Own Tongues, and another forthcoming from Parallel Press, African American Life in Haiku. See http://www.artistfabu.com/
Susan Firer's most recent book is Milwaukee Does Strange Things to People: New & Selected Poems 1979-2007. She is curator of the ExpressMilwaukee online poetry column. The Poetry Foundation has included her poem "Call Me Pier" in its Poetry Everywhere animated poem series, available for viewing on YouTube or through the Foundation. She was Poet Laureate of Milwaukee from 2008-2010.
ed galing is 92 years old, born in New York in 1917, and often writes about this era, but not always. He has won many literary awards, two Pushcart nominations, written 70 chapbooks, become Poet Laureate of Hatboro. He was featured in Free Verse #92. [Galing's chapbook, tales of south philly, is reviewed in Verse Wisconsin Online.]
Russell Gardner, Jr. grew up on a central WI farm, lived in many states as an adult, and is back in Wisconsin. Writing poetry (and prose) since college, he also does mixed media visual art and helped originate and then coordinate the Epidemic Peace Imagery project featured in Free Verse #99/100.
Jessica Greenbaum’s book, Inventing Difficulty, came out from The Gerald Cable Prize (Silverfish Review Press, 2000) and poems from her second manuscript have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, Nextbook, Southwest Review and elsewhere.
Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM. From 1995 to 2008 he edited Hodge Podge Poetry (print), Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry (web) and Origami Condom (web) in succession. His poems appear mostly on the web as he generally spends postage and reading fees on flowers for his lover (or dark belgian chocolate for himself). He has two books available through amazon: Writers' Block and Greeting Card.
Jerry Hauser has published 17 chapbooks in recent years and has published many more poems in journals of poetry and literature over a 25 year period. Currently he is finishing a book of poems under the title of A Stir of Seasons.
Jim Hazard grew up in Indiana and the South Side of Chicago. Moved to Wisconsin in '63 and has been here ever since, although he does have a passport he uses now and then.
After living and writing in Appleton for 21 years, Merle Hazard moved in 2008 to Macon, GA...closer to family.
Ronnie Hess’ poetry has appeared or is forthcoming from Alimentum, Albatross, Arbor Vitae, Poetica, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Wisconsin People & Ideas. She is the author of a chapbook, Whole Cloth: A Poem Cycle (Little Eagle Press, 2009). [Whole Cloth is reviewed in this issue.]
Andrew Hill was born in East London, England on the 28th of February 1983. He works as a labourer on building sites.
Jeanette Hinds (1921-2008) published her first poem at age 13. She continued to write and publish while raising six children, going on to publish two chapbooks, Traveling On and My Mother’s Keys. She volunteered as a poetry teacher at Rochester Federal Prison and was active for many years in the League of Minnesota Poets (LOMP).
Edward Hirsch’s new book is The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, 2010).
A graduate of Carthage College, Eric Huff is really just floating between Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee, spending long afternoons in used bookstores. You may also find him at the occasional Admirals hockey game though he admits he mainly goes to see the fights. He has a chapbook, in blues, and his poems have appeared in a number of small publications and more recently in the 2009 Albion Review.
Jason Huff grew up in northern Illinois and southeast Texas, where he studied poetry under R.S. Gwynn for many years. He’s battled both mental illness and substance abuse, and published work in The Texas Review, descant, and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others. He has a ton of family in the Appleton/Neenah area. And he loves cheese.
Karla Huston is the author of six chapbooks of poetry, most recently, An Inventory of Lost Things (Centennial Press, 2009). Her poems, reviews and interviews have been published widely.
Joan Wiese Johannes was born near Horicon Marsh. Her poems have been widely published and won numerous awards. Her chapbook Sensible Shoes was the 2009 winner of the John and Miriam Morris Memorial Chapbook Contest sponsored by the Alabama Poetry Society. She lives in Port Edwards, WI with her poet husband Jeffrey.
Halvard Johnson has lived and worked in Chicago, El Paso, Cayey, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and New York City. He also taught overseas in Germany and Japan. He currently lives most of the year in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Both his parents were raised in Milwaukee, where he spent many childhood summers, and where many extended family members still live and work.
These days Gary Jones spends more time writing poetry than brawling in bars, but the two activities came together in his poem IN MEMORIUM, a piece that won second place in the Hal Grutzmacher writing competition. His poetry has appeared in many publications over the years. He is a writer, teacher, and this past summer a roofer, who lives on the northern Door peninsula with his books and gardens and wife of many years.
Muriel Karr fondly recalls a Greyhound bus trip through Wisconsin in the 1970s. Menomonie is such fun to say. And one delightful town whose name she can't remember has a little waterfall right in its center. You can order Muriel's two poetry books from Bellowing Ark Press.
William Keener is a writer and environmental lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area. His chapbook Gold Leaf on Granite, won the 2008 Anabiosis Press Contest. Poems are recently published or forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Margie, Isotope, The Main Street Rag and Terrain.org among others. He has not yet been to Wisconsin, but Milwaukee friends in California have him saying "Cheesehead!" when smiling for the camera.
Ellen Kort has authored 14 books and has been featured in a wide variety of anthologies. She was named a 2004 Fellow of Letters by the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, has received the Pablo Neruda prize for Poetry, the Council for Wisconsin Writers’ Award for Outstanding Encouragement of Wisconsin Writers, and the Robert E. Gard Wisconsin Idea Foundation Award for Excellence.
Michael Kriesel is a poetry reviewer for Small Press Review and his reviews have appeared in Library Journal. He has won both the WFOP Muse Prize and the Lorine Niedecker Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He’s been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes. Books include Chasing Saturday Night (Marsh River Editions); Feeding My Heart To The Wind (Sunnyoutside Press), Moths Mail the House (Sunnyoutside Press), and Soul Noir (Platonic 3way Press).
W.F. Lantry received his Licence and Maîtrise from the Université de Nice, M.A. from Boston University, and Ph.D. from the University of Houston. The recipient of the Paris/Atlantic Young Writers Award, his poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, Tennessee Quarterly, and Unslpendid among others. His lawyer attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and tells him nostalgic stories of the charming winters.
Peg Lauber divides her time and activities between Eau Claire and New Orleans. She and Sandy Lindow will be busy editing the 2011 Wisconsin Poets' Calendar this year.
Estella Lauter [book reviewsof Chronister and Kercheval] is Professor Emerita at UW-Oshkosh and lives in the Door Peninsula. Her first chapbook, Pressing a Life Together By Hand (2007) appeared in the New Women’s Voices series from Finishing Line Press, and was nominated for two Pushcart prizes. The Essential Rudder: North Channel Poems was released by FLP in 2008. Her poem "Gaza, January 2009" tied for first prize in the 2009 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest; it appears on www.wagingpeace.org.
Carol Levin’s most recent chapbook Red Rooms and Others was released from Pecan Grove Press, April 2009. Poems have appeared widely and new work will appear in The New York Quarterly, The Cortland Review and Stringtown. She collaborated in translating Anton Chekhov’s four major plays and worked as dramaturge on the productions of the scripts. She is an Editorial Assistant for the Crab Creek Review.
Emilie Lindemann is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She enjoys pedaling her pink bicycle past cornfields in rural Manitowoc County and is also an avid vintage clothing collector. Emilie's poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review and the Blue Canary.
Sandra Lindow lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, Wisconsin where she communes with perennials and attempts to keep a particularly wanton rabbit from chewing the tops of her carrots. She teaches part-time at UW-Stout and has published six books of poetry.
Ellaraine Lockie has received eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. She's been the recipient of multiple prizes but among the coolest is her first place in the Summer Shark Poetry Contest from the Aquarium of the Pacific. She's authored seven chapbooks, serves as Poetry Editor for Lilipoh, and teaches poetry workshops. She visited Appleton last summer and met many WI poets with whom she's corresponded and collaborated. [Another poem by Lockie appears in Verse Wisconsin magazine, and you can hear her reading online.]
Bobbi Lurie’s third poetry collection, Grief Suite, is forthcoming from CustomWords. Her other poetry collections are The Book I Never Read and Letter from the Lawn. Her work has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals including New American Writing, American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, and many others. She lives in New Mexico.
Jolieth McIntosh, was born in Jamaica and began writing poems at an early age. She presents her poems regularly at African Association and Caribbean Association events. The Hibiscus Collective poetry and prose group is a source of support as an artist and gives her opportunities to present her work. Jolieth lives on the northeast side of Madison with her husband, Carl.
Susan McLean is a professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her first full-length poetry book, The Best Disguise, won the 2009 Richard Wilbur Award and has been published by the University of Evansville Press. She once had an on-campus interview for a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, but was not offered the position.
Amy MacLennan has been published or has work forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, River Styx, Linebreak, Cimarron Review, Folio, and Rattle, as well as in the anthologies Not a Muse and Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems. Her ties to Wisconsin include her previous publication in Wisconsin Review, her high school best friend's Wisconsin accent and her great respect for the Packers. MacLennan also has a postcard poem online.
Richard Merelman took up poetry writing in 2001. Previously, he taught political science at UW-Madison. He was born and grew up in Washington, D.C., and has lived in Madison on and off since 1969. His poems have appeared in journals such as California Quarterly, Free Verse, Measure, and Wisconsin Academy Review, among others.
Corey Mesler’s first full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), is out from Foothills Publishing. He has been nominated for numerous Pushcart Prizes, and two of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He once spent a long weekend among the comely writing department at UW-Madison, where he fell in love with a raven-haired poetess who spurned him and turned him into a bristly shoat. With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.
Derek Mong was born in Portland , Oregon , raised outside of Cleveland , and currently lives in Louisville , Kentucky where he holds the 2008-2010 Axton Poetry Fellowship at the University of Louisville . In 2006-2007 he was the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2011 Saturnalia Books will publish his first collection of poems. You can read more at www.derekmong.com.
Richard W. Moyer is 78 years old. He obtained his AB in English at Harvard College in 1953, an MH from University of Richmond in 1976, and an MA in English from Temple University in 2000. His poems are widely published, and he has one chapbook and one book of selected poems to his credit.
CJ Muchhala’s poems have appeared in numerous publications and are forthcoming in Pearl 43 and Rhino. Her poetry is collected in the chapbook Traveling Without a Map and on the audio CD The Sparks Look at News, Weather & Sports.
John Murillo is the current Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. A graduate of NYU’s MFA program, he has received fellowships from the NY Times, Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in such publications as Callaloo, Court Green, and the anthology Writing Self and Community: African-American Poetry After the Civil Rights Movement. His first collection, Up Jump the Boogie, will be published by Cypher Books in February 2010.
Ralph Murre, of Sheboygan, Milwaukee, Hubertus, Kewaskum, Maplewood, Algoma, Fish Creek, Sister Bay, Ellison Bay, Egg Harbor, La Crosse, Ephraim, and Jacksonport, now lives in Baileys Harbor. He’s also had several addresses in California, Kentucky, and Florida, but prefers Wisconsin.
Maurice Oliver’s poems have appeared in numerous national and international publications including Potomac Journal, Dandelion Magazine (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK), Cha Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), Kritya (India), Blueprint Review (Germany) and Arabesques Review (Algeria). His fourth chapbook is One Remedy Is Travel (Origami Condom, 2007). Find him at http://cshoe.blogspot.com. He lives in Portland, OR.
Ann M. Penton, Sarona, WI, retired to a lake place in the northern woods after college teaching. She has been enjoying having more time to observe nature, explore her curiosities, investigate southern climes in winter, and write poetry. She has received awards in WFOP and WRWA Poetry contests.
Andrea Potos lives in Madison with her husband and daughter. She works part-time at A Room of One's Own Bookstore and also for Parallel Press, UW-Madison. She has a collection from Parallel Press titled The Perfect Day. Her book Yaya's Cloth won a 2008 Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association.
Amy Quan Barry is a professor of English and the Director of the MFA Program at the University of Wisconsin.
Rakina (AKA Adrienne Muhammad) has traveled throughout North and West Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe, staying in primarily impoverished and underdeveloped communities. Her writing tells the stories of the lives, conditions, and struggles of these peoples. She received the Signe Skott Cooper award in writing from the school of nursing at the University of Wisconsin. She joined the Hibiscus Collective at its inception and is excited to be the single prose writer among a group of poets.
Nancy Reddy recently moved to Wisconsin to attend the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previous publications include Prairie Schooner and New Orleans Review.
Susan Rich is the author of three poetry collections, The Cartographer’s Tongue (2000), Cures Include Travel (2006), and The Alchemist’s Kitchen (2010). She has received awards from PEN USA, The Times Literary Supplement, and Peace Corps Writers. Her recent poems appear in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Poetry International and TriQuarterly. Visit her online.
Lou Roach, former social worker and psychotherapist, lives in Poynette. Her poems have appeared in a number of small press publications, including Main St. Rag, Free Verse and others. She has written two books of poetry, A Different Muse and For Now. She continues to do free-lance writing, although poetry is her favorite thing to do.
Nydia Rojas lives and writes poetry in Wisconsin, where she also enjoys spring, summer and fall and frowns on winter. Her work has been published in the Wisconsin Academy Review, International Poetry Review, Revista/ Review Interamericana, in the anthology Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest and in many other literary magazines.
Tess Romeis, Cedarburg, WI, is a housewife/poet and member of the Stone Kettle Poets.
Paula Sergi was born and raised in Fond du Lac, WI, a community to which she returned after spending several years of wanderlust and exploration in the Pacific Northwest. She writes from a perch at the intersection of the Dutch Gap and the Fond du Lac River.
Shoshauna Shy is a member of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet. In May 2004, she founded Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf. Her poems have been published in numerous journals and magazines including The Seattle Review, Cimarron Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Rattle, Rosebud and Poetry Northwest. Her collection titled What the Postcard Didn’t Say won an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association in 2008.
Noel Sloboda lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival. He is the author of the poetry collection Shell Games (sunnyoutside, 2008). [Sloboda also has a postcard poem online.]
Lester Smith is an award-winning writer, game designer, and poet who works as a writer and technologist for Sebranek Inc., an educational publishing house in southern Wisconsin. He is also the current president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. As time permits, he publishes other writers via Popcorn Press.
J.R. Solonche is coauthor—with wife Joan I. Siegel—of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970's. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
Artist Sarah Spencerwrites: "The postcard [Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf] project has been very rewarding. Pairing poetry with art was an insightful and enjoyable experience. I used my abstract paintings and magnified them to different degrees creating another abstraction altogether. You're only seeing a portion of the original work. I'm grateful to Shoshauna for asking me to participate in this unique project."
Nadine S. St. Louis, Eau Claire, has authored two books, Zebra (Marsh River Editions, 2008) and Weird Sisters (Wolfsong, 2000). Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including ByLine, Free Verse, Kalliope, A Peace of the Valley, and in collaborative shows including Wisconsin’s Epidemic Peace Imagery Exhibit. She is one of the founders of the Chippewa Valley Book Festival, just completing its 10th year.
Richard Swanson [reviews of Chapman and Murre] lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he reads, gardens, and writes. His previous volume was Men in the Nude in Socks (Fireweed, 2006). His forthcoming work will be available in early 2010.
Australian-born Katrin Talbot is a violist, photographer, and poet, whose collection St. Cecilia’s Dazeis forthcoming from Parallel Press. Her poetry has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, and she was a finalist in 2009 for four national poetry prizes—one of which awarded enough prize money to fund a Dairy Queen run. Katrin’s photo essay of Schubert’s Winterreise was published as a coffee table book and CD by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Bruce Taylor is Professor Emeritus at UW-Eau Claire; his latest collection is Pity the World: Poems Selected and New. He is the editor of eight anthologies including, with Patti See, Higher Learning: Reading and Writing About College. His work has appeared in such places as Able Muse, Light, The Nation, Poetry, E2ink-1: the Best of the Online Journals. Taylor has won awards from the Wisconsin Arts Board, Fulbright-Hayes, the NEA, the NEH, The Council of Wisconsin Writers,and the Bush Artist Foundation and is the recipient of the Excellence In Scholarship award from UWEC.
Marilyn L. Taylor is serving as the Poet Laureate of Wisconsin for 2009 and 2010, and enjoying every minute of it. Her award-winning poems have appeared in dozens of anthologies and journals, including Poetry, The American Scholar, Measure, Valparaiso Review, and The Formalist. Her sixth and latest collection, titled Going Wrong, was published by Parallel Press in July of 2009. She is also a Contributing Editor for The Writer magazine, where her articles on poetic craft appear bimonthly. [Going Wrong is also reviewed in VW Online.]
Jeanie Tomasko is a Madison native, living in Middleton, but just as liberal. She is a nurse who loves to write, take walks, birdwatch and thinks everything is prettier in Fall. She is the author of a forthcoming chapbook, Tricks of Light, (Parallel Press, 2011).
Timothy Walsh’s awards include the Grand Prize in the Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition and the Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize from North American Review. He authored a book of literary criticism, The Dark Matter of Words: Absence, Unknowing, and Emptiness in Literature, and two chapbooks, Wild Apples(Parallel) and Blue Lace Colander (Marsh River). He is an Assistant Dean at UW-Madison.
Mary Wehner is the author of …or the Opposite, a letterpress chapbook by Red Hydra Press in Tuscaloosa, which also published her letterpress broadside, The Chinese Painting. She was featured in the online journal Zinkzine. Her poem “Broken Shells at Dawn” was printed in a lithograph as part of a collaboration with Cuban artist, Pollyanna Fernández Fernández (Red Hydra Press). Wehner is a founding member of The Foot of the Lake Poetry Collective. She was poet in residence at Penland School of Craft in NC in 2007. “The Full Car” won a Muse prize in 2005.
Marilyn Windau was nurtured on Big Bend farms, in raspberry patches in Fremont, by blue gills from Green Lake and books in Madison. Graduating from UW-Madison, she married a civil engineer from Wauwatosa and raised three daughters in Appleton and Sheboygan Falls. She teaches art to elementary school children in Oostburg.
Christopher Woods lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas. He shares a gallery with his wife Linda at MOONBIRD HILL ARTS, www.moonbirdhill.exposuremanager.com.
Mark Zimmermann lives with his wife in Milwaukee where he teaches writing and humanities courses at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The poems published here are lipograms. (A lipogram deliberately excludes one or more letters of the alphabet; here the lipogrammatic constraint has been determined by the letters that appear in the name of the person who provides the title/subject of the work.) Mark’s project with lipograms was featured in Free Verse #94.
