Print & Online Contributors' Notes, Verse Wisconsin 102
Judith Arcana’s recent 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.
Ann Arntson, member of Stone Kettle Poets, lives and writes in Monona and in Idlewild, Door County. Her poems have appeared in Free Verse, Echoes, and Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar.
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.
Over 150 of Peter Austin’s poems have been published in magazines and anthologies in the USA and several other countries. As well as poetry, he writes plays, and his musical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows has enjoyed four productions. Sadly, he cannot claim any connection to Wisconsin, even geographical, because although Ontario is close to it, Michigan comes inbetween.
Daniel Bachhuber is a Montessori elementary teacher in the St. Paul Public Schools. He has published poetry in the Iowa Review, Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Review, The Christian Science Monitor and many others, as well as a book, Mozart’s Carriage, from New Rivers Press, 2003. He also writes educational articles for Montessori periodicals.
Mary Jo Balistreri spent most of her life as a concert pianist and harpsichordist. With the death of her grandsons, she began writing to give witness and transcend grief. She has published in journals such as Free Verse, Windhover, Passager, The Healing Muse. Echoes and others, as well as in the anthology, Empty Shoes, (Popcorn Press). Her book, Joy in the Morning, was published by Bellowing Ark Press in 2008.
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.
Guy R. Beining has had six poetry books and 25 chapbooks published over the years, and appeared in seven anthologies. He is in the Contemporary Authors Autobiography series, Vol. 30, 1998 (Gale Research). He is also in the Dictionary of the Avant Gardes, 2nd Ed., 2000. Recent publications include chain, epiphany, perspective (Germany), New Orleans Review, The New Review of Literature.
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 [also What Is This Thing Called Genre Poetry?] 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.
Jon Boisvert grew up in southern Wisconsin and now lives in Oregon. His work has been read in Slipstream, Heartlands, Blood Orange Review, Dark Sky Magazine, Greenbeard Magazine, and Main Street Mag. He is currently working on a collection of poems about body modification and performance artists, including those from the circus, classic and modern.
Peter Branson lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire, England. A former teacher and lecturer, he now organises writing workshops. Over the last four years he has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals in Britain. He has also had poems published in USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand.
Sarah Busse is a co-editor of Verse Wisconsin. Her chapbook, Given These Magics, is out from Finishing Line Press in 2010.
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.
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.
Chloe N. Clark grew up in North Central Wisconsin and is currently a junior at UW-Madison majoring in English with a Creative Writing focus. She dislikes writing bio statements.
DeWitt Clinton has lived with his wife and a menagerie of creatures for over thirty years in Milwaukee and Shorewood. This spring he is on sabbatical from his university (UW-Whitewater), writing a series of poems, 100 Poems by a Lake, based on Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.
Cathryn Cofell is the author of five chapbooks, most recently Kamikaze Commotion (Parallel Press, 2008). Her poetry can be found in places like MARGIE, Oranges & Sardines, NY Quarterly and Wisconsin People & Ideas, where she was selected for the 2008 John Lehman Poetry Award. She is a strong advocate for the arts, having served as founding Chair of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, on the board of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and currently on the Advisory Board of Verse Wisconsin.
Maryann Corbett’s work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Measure, Christianity and Literature, and many other journals in print and online. It has received the Lyric Memorial Award and the 2009 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. Gardening in a Time of War was published by Pudding House Press and another chapbook, Dissonance, is forthcoming from Scienter Press. For her, Wisconsin is the place just over the river, where colleagues live and friends teach, the first place she crosses when she’s outward bound and the last stretch when she returns.
Charlotte Cunningham-McEachin's work has appeared in Apathy is Easy and Gutter Eloquence Magazine. She teaches on the border of Mexico at Laredo Community College, questions and combats The Patron System (perhaps to her peril), and submits her-writing hesitantly. She received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College in 2005.
In addition to being an actor in the Core Acting Company at American Players Theatre, David Daniel also serves as APT’s Education Director, teaching workshops on poetry and Shakespeare for students and teachers alike. David holds an MFA from the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program and is a proud veteran of the United States Army.
Rick Dinges has an MA in literary studies from University of Iowa, and he manages business systems at an insurance company. His poems have been published in many magazines and journals, including Descant, Soundings East, and Free Lunch. He has driven through Wisconsin twice, on the way to somewhere else, a statement often applied to his own home state, which gives him an oddly perverse pleasure to say about someone else.
Jack Dillhunt is an artist from Green Bay, WI.He is also writing a novel of spiritual fiction called "The Ocean and The Ocean's Daughters."
Cathy Douglas was born in California, but has lived in Madison for the last twenty years. She works in a metaphysical shop near campus and owns a house on the east side, where she keeps her husband, two sons and three cats. She’s pretty well adjusted, other than a writing habit and a craving for kumquats. “A Memo Went Out” is her first published poem.
John Dubord lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Annette, his partner, and has retired from various kinds of work. He is the father of 3 and grandfather of 1. He can sometimes be spotted sitting on the curb in front of his house scribbling in his spiral notebook with an open bottle of MD 20/20 beside him for company.
Denise Duhamel's most recent poetry titles are Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005),Mille et un Sentiments (Firewheel, 2005) and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001). A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she is an associate professor at Florida International University in Miami.
R. Virgil (Ron) Ellis lives near Cambridge, Wisconsin, where he and his wife are busy restoring fifty acres of wetland and savanna. He is an Emeritus Professor who taught writing, literature and media at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. For an exploration of his work see www.poetrvellis.com.
Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens! is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems appear regularly in Yankee Dog and Pennons of Pegasus, and have most recently appeared in The Chimaera, The Flea, Lucid Rhythms, and Umbrella. As for Wisconsin ties, he studied at the Hartford Conservatory with Tele Lesbines, former timpanist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
Renee Emerson has her MFA from Boston University. She recently won the Academy of American Poets Prize, and her work has been published in Tar River Poetry, Room, Existere, The Blue Earth Review, and various others. She lives and writes in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, and is the author of Something Like Flight (Sargent Press, 2010).
Josh English is 25. He lives and works in Louisville, KY. He received his BA in English from Ripon College. In addition to four years of college in Wisconsin, he hitchhiked up to Fond du Lac one time last year. This is his first poem to appear in print.
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/
Beatriz F. Fernandez's cousin-in-law, Jane Banning, is a writer who lives in Oregon, WI. Searching for Jane's writing on the web, she came across Verse Wisconsin. Beatriz was the grand prize winner of the 2nd Annual Writer's Digest Poetry Award. She's currently a Reference librarian at Florida International University in Miami. She considers her whole life to be an "alternate reality."
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 the Poet Laureate of Milwaukee, 2008-10.
Kevin Fitchett is a native of Green Bay. He is currently second on the list of most goals scored in Lakeland College soccer history. Throughout last year he accompanied, on the cello, Karl Elder in the audio/live production of "The Houdini Monologues."
Russell Gardner 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.
Brent Goodman [also book review of Philip Dacey] is the author of three poetry collections, most recently The Brother Swimming Beneath Me (Black Lawrence Press, 2009). His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Zone 3, Gulf Coast, Court Green, and elsewhere. http://brentgoodman.wordpress.com/
Ruth Goring's collection Yellow Doors was published in 2004; her work has appeared widely. She edits for a university press, codirects Across the Americas, and writes many poems set in Colombia, where she grew up. But it was in Lake Geneva on New Year's Eve 2002 that she became engaged to her husband, Daniel; and in 2007 she thoroughly enjoyed the WFOP retreat near Bailey's Harbor. In her book Wisconsin is a pretty cool place to be.
T.M. Göttl is a poet, journalist, writer, and performer living and working in Ohio, who has published a full-length poetry collection, Stretching the Window. Once while on vacation, her family stopped at the Wisconsin Dells to take a helicopter ride, and she hopes to someday return to Wisconsin to revisit the House on the Rock, to fulfill her intrigue with Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire with his wife and two children. A high school English teacher, he recently completed his MFA at The University of New Hampshire. He has published extensively. His third book of poetry, After the Honeymoon, came out in Fall 2009 by sunnyoutside press. http://nathangraziano.com/
RL Greenfield was born in Waupun, WI. He has lived in L.A. & Southern California since 1962. His poems & prose have been printed widely. He is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, and has produced and hosted a television series in Santa Barbara called The Greenfield Code, which consisted of 150 one-hour television programs featuring poets, novelists, performance artists, & professors of literature.
David Gross lives in the foothills of the Illinois Ozarks. His work has been included in numerous literary and small-press journals and in four anthologies. He is the author of four chapbooks of poetry. The most recent, Pilgrimage, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009.
Greg Grummer has lived in Wisconsin on and off most of his life. He currently lives in Milwaukee where he owns and operates, with his sister, a small manufacturing company that makes and markets papermaking kits and supplies.
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.
Emily Haight was born and raised in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in December 2009 with a degree in English and was recently accepted to serve as a volunteer for the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe. Emily enjoys travel in Latin America, wine and literature.
Shelly Hall currently lives and works in Waukesha, WI, teaching for local colleges. She is interested in the intersections between music, divination traditions, and poetics. Her most recent book is Mind of Cups (Popcorn Press, 2007).
Matthea Harvey’s most recent book of poetry, Modern Life, won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2008 as well as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Matthea teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence and lives in Brooklyn. Visit http://www.mattheaharvey.info/index.html.
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.
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.
MaryAnn Hurtt lives down the road from the Ice Age Trail. The Kettle Moraine and her work as a hospice care nurse keep her constantly in awe of poems walking by. She co-authored a hospice care planning book with Cynthia Frozena. Her poems have appeared in Free Verse and the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar.
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.
Catherine Jagoe is the translator of novels from Spain and Argentina; she recently finished translating a memoir about the Arctic from Catalan into English. A member of the Madison poetry group Lake Effect, she is the author of Casting Off, a Parallel Press chapbook. Her poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and A Writer's Almanac.
Nancy Jesse taught English at Madison West High School before retiring in 2005. She grew up on a dairy farm in Barron County, moving to Madison in 1968 to attend the University of Wisconsin. She has published both prose and poetry and presently lives in Madison with her husband Paul.
Lucy Rose Johns, from Nekoosa, WI is a long time member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She is grateful to the staffs of Rhinelander School of the Arts, Earth Wonders, and Home Brew Press for their poetic wisdom.
Robert K. Johnson is consulting editor for Ibbetson Street magazine. His poems have been published in Main Street Rag, South Carolina Review and The New York Times, among others. His most recent collections are From Mist to Shadow and Flowering Weeds.
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.
Martha Kaplan grew up in Seattle, has lived in Minneapolis, Houston and Chicago, and now lives in Madison. Her poetry is influenced by the vicissitudes of landscape, natural and human, and the impact of one on the other. She has published with Branch Redd Review, and Möbius, The Poetry Magazine. She has poems forthcoming in Blue Unicorn and Hummingbird.
Erin Keane (website) has strained her eyes to see Wisconsin from the Michigan side of the great lake. In high school, she visited Milwaukee on a school trip and learned how warm and delicious Miller beer can smell during the brewing phase. She lives and writes in Louisville, where she directs the InKY Reading Series. She is the author of two collections of poetry, The Gravity Soundtrack and Death-Defying Acts.
Don Kimball is the author of two chapbooks, Journal of a Flatlander (Finishing Line Press 2009) and Skipping Stones (Pudding House Publications 2008). His poetry has appeared in The Formalist, The Lyric, The Blue Unicorn, and various other journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Robyn Kohlwey is a current resident of Grafton, Wisconsin and recently graduated from Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Her work has recently appeared in Arbor Vitae, Anthills V and Nerve Cowboy.
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.
Janet Leahy is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Her poems have appeared in the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar and in regional and national publications. The Storm, her most recent chapbook, is a collection of poems about the Iraq War. She lives in New Berlin.
John Lehman is the founder of Rosebud magazine and the poetry editor of Wisconsin People & Ideas. This article is an excerpt from his Compact Disk of the same name, How and Why a Poem Works. It can be purchased for $10 on-line at www.RosebudBookReviews.com.
MaryEllen Letarte has roots in Wisconsin that still tug at her. Her dad was born in Pepin, and matriculated at the University of Wisconsin. She occasionally teaches poetry to children in after school programs and to adults enrolled in ALFA-Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area.
Sandra Lindow lives on a hilltop, where on summer evenings she does tai chi on her driveway and watches for UFOs. She teaches part-time at UW-Stout and has published six books of poetry. Presently she co-edits the 2011 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar.
Marie Loeffler is a Wisconsin poet, violinist, and private violin instructor who spends most of her free time practicing, writing, reading, and creating. Her poetry publications are current or forthcoming in Echoes, the WFOP Spring 2010 Museletter, and the 2011 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. This is her first journal publication
Molly Magestro has always lived in Wisconsin, even when she lived in Iowa, Michigan, and California, as her family, thus her heart, has always been here. Her PhD, forthcoming in 2011, will be from Wisconsin as well.
Joan Marella is a former English teacher who enjoys bird watching, singing and gardening. Her interests range from outer space to ancient history. She has been published widely and had a poem nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Greg Markee moved to Madison in 1998 for studies and family connections. Conceptual improvisation and experimental narrative are characteristics of his poems. Writings can be found at gregmarkee.com and other places on occasion.
Tim Mayo’s poems and reviews have appeared or will appear in Atlanta Review, Babel Fruit, 5 AM, Poetry International, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac, among others. He has been a semi-finalist for the “Discovery”/Nation Award. His full length collection The Kingdom of Possibilities (Mayapple Press), was a semi finalist for the 2009 Brittingham and Pollak Awards and a finalist for 2009 May Swenson Award, and he was recently named a top finalist for the 2009 Paumanok Award.
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.
Denny Murawska has been tramping the woods and streams of Wisconsin his entire life. He has been published in numerous small literary magazines and newspapers, although he is not a journalist. He currently resides on a pine-studded, sandstone mound in the inspiring country north of Black River Falls. Here, he paints fish as a taxidermist, gardens, and hunts in this backwoods environs that suits him just fine.
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.
Gillian Nevers has lived in Madison so long that she considers herself to be a native. Her poems have appeared in online and print publications including California Quarterly, Miller’s Pond, and Silk Road. In 2008, she won second prize in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters Statewide Poetry Contest. She is the current membership chair of WFOP.
Stanley M. Noah has a BGS degree from The University of Texas at Dallas. He has been published in Poesy, Main Street Rag, Iota, Art Times, Eclectica.org, and other publications in the USA, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and India. He is the winner of the Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest, Humorous Category, 2006.
Robert Nordstrom is a poet, free lance writer, and school bus driver living in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. His goal for the school year is modest, though a bit subversive, and that's to teach high schoolers how to respond when an adult says good morning, good afternoon, or how ya doin? Thus far, limited success.
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.
Esther Pearson is a Minnesota native who loves the change of seasons, chocolate labradors, and running in the rain. She is a poet and writer who finds her inspiration in children's books, startling art, and quirky people
Jim Price retired to Osceola Township in Wisconsin over a year ago, after a 30 year career in human services. Most of that career was spent in Minnesota. He’s written a lot of poetry over the years, and feels maybe it's time to share with a wider circle than friends and family. This is his first published poem.
Joseph Radke's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals including Boulevard, New York Quarterly, The Journal, REAL, Redactions, Copper Nickel, Ellipsis, Pear Noir, and Natural Bridge. He teaches writing in Green Bay.
Jessy Randall's collection of poems A Day in Boyland (Ghost Road Press, 2007) was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She has never been to Wisconsin, but from what her friends tell her, she thinks she would like it. Her website is http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall.
Erik Richardson is a schoolteacher and freelance writer in Milwaukee. Recent work has appeared in Arbor Vitae, Sein und Werden, and Wisconsin People & Ideas (forthcoming). He won the 2009 Gahagan Prize in poetry and publishes a modest poetry journal for young people: Signs & Wonders.
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, and Revista/ Review Interamericana, in the anthology Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest and many other literary magazines. She is the author of the chapbook Stealing Daylight.
Angela Rydell lives in Madison, WI and teaches creative writing in the UW-Madison Continuing Studies Division. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poets & Writers, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Lullwater Review, Poet Lore and other journals. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College.
G. A. Scheinoha dislikes bio notes precisely because they are pretentious. Maybe this comes from a grounded Wisconsin background. Or just his view: the writer isn’t as important as the poem. Still, if you must have his curriculum vitae, recent bylines include Avocet, Conceit, Echoes, Fox Cry Review and Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar 2010.
A lifelong resident of Wisconsin, Kathleen Serley [reviews of Bache-Wiig and Moreland & Miner] enjoys all of our seasons: spring gardening, summer beach combing, fall hiking and winter snow shoeing. She teaches English.
Peter Sherrill’s poems have appeared in a variety of state and national publications, but not recently. He’s been occupied with airplanes, grandchildren, house projects and all the usual distractions. He’s a past president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
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) and the chapbook Stages (sunnyoutside, 2010).
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.
Thomas R. Smith lives in River Falls, Wisconsin and is a Master Track instructor in poetry at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. His most recent collection is Kinnickinnic (Parallel Press), and a new book, The Foot of the Rainbow, is forthcoming from Red Dragonfly Press in spring 2010.
J.R.Solonche is coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His work has been appearing in magazines and journals since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
Kate Sontag has most recently published in Prairie Schooner and has work forthcoming in Seattle Review. Her work has been featured in Valparaiso Poetry Review and appeared in anthologies such as Boomer Girls, Are You Experienced?, and Sweeping Beauty (U. of Iowa). She is co-editor of After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf) and teaches at Ripon College.
David Steingass is the author of six books including Fishing for Dynamite, and GreatPlain(RedDragonfly Press, Redwing MN) which won the 2002 Posner Award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers. He is interested especially in technical and stylistic possibilities among lineated poems, prose poems, and flash fiction. Besides reading and writing at his Madison home, Steingass presents writing workshops and residencies in schools.
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.
Judy Swann's work [reviews of Kolosso and of Grienke] has been published in Lilliput, Thema,Apparatus, Tilt Poetry Magazine, and other venues, both print and online. Her work at The Waters has been honored by both first and second place awards from the InterBoard Poetry Competition judges. She is an Iowan.
Richard Swanson lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he reads, gardens, and writes. His previous volume was Men in the Nude in Socks (Fireweed, 2006). His latest book is Not Quite Eden (Fireweed Press).
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’s latest collection is Pity the World: Poems Selected and New. Professor Emeritus at UW-Eau Claire, 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, and 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 UW-EC.
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.
Nancy Ellis Taylor is an L.A.-based writer active with the Southland Poets of the Fantastic (science fiction, horror and fantasy) and Poets on Site (group focusing on art in galleries and museums.) Her work will appear in upcoming issues of Tales of the Talisman and the anthology RetroSpec. Taylor is a big cheese fan and Wisconsin extra sharp cheddar served with sliced Granny Smith apples is a special favorite.
Jari Thymian’s poems are widely published and her chapbook, The Meaning of Barns (Finishing Line Press), was inspired by a barn raising at Common Harvest Farm near Osceola, WI. Some of her haiku can be found painted on the inside walls of that barn. She survived several afternoons on the Apple River in her 20s and is delighted that one of her poems was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.http://www.jarithymian.com/
Steve Tomasko lives in Middleton with his wife, Jeanie, 3 kids, 2 cats, some uninvited fleas and probably a few more life forms he doesn’t know about unless he peeks in the corners and under the couch.
Sandra M. Tully (Delafield) is a poet and children’s book author. Her poetry has appeared in St. Anthony Messenger, Echoes, and Fox Cry Review and is forthcoming in Dream Network Journal, Daily Word, and Sacred Journey. She was awarded the Jade Ring Award in 2005.
Wendy Vardaman, author of Obstructed View (Fireweed Press 2009), is the co-editor of Verse Wisconsin. Visit wendyvardaman.com.
Lisa Vihos worked for twenty years as an art museum educator and is now the Director of Alumni Relations at Lakeland College and resides in Sheboygan. Her poems have appeared in Free Verse, Lakefire, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Seems, and Big Muddy. She maintains a weekly blog, http://lisapoemoftheweek.blogspot.com/.
Ron Wallace’s most recent poetry collections are For a Limited Time Only (2008) and Long for This World: New and Selected Poems (2003), both from the University of Pittsburgh Press. He co-directs the creative writing program at UW-Madison, and serves as poetry editor for the Brittingham and Pollak prize competition. He divides his time between Madison and a forty-acre farm in Bear Valley, WI.
Marine Robert Warden is a retired physician living in Riverside, CA. Recent publications include Canticle III and Finding Beauty, Selected Poems (Bellowing Ark Press).
Stephen Lloyd Webber earned his MFA in poetry from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He is editor-in-chief of Di Mezzo Il Mare, an online magazine showcasing images from handwritten and art journals. He coordinates several wellness and writing retreats in Italy. More information on these retreats can be found at writingimmersion.com.
Ed Werstein spent 22 years in manufacturing, and the last 15 years as a workforce development professional helping job seekers. Ed has only recently started to write more regularly and to submit his work to public scrutiny. Ed’s work has appeared in the 2009 Mark My Words collaborative art show in LaCrosse and in the collection Vampyr Verse published by Popcorn Press.
Cherree Wellman lives in Middleton with her 12 yr old daughter, chihuahua and parrot. She works in healthcare purchasing, and has been writing since she was a girl. Some of her favorite writers are Louise Gluck, Mark Strand, Federico Garcia Lorca, Amy Lowell, and Dylan Thomas.
Kelley White’s work has been widely published in numerous journals including Exquisite Corpse, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle and the Journal of the American Medical Association, and in chapbooks and full-length collections, most recently Toxic Environment from Boston Poet Press. She has also received several honors, including a 2008 grant for poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
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.
Lisa Zimmerman is an antiques dealer, book collector, and poet. She lives and writes in the Northwoods. Founding member of the five-year-old Eagle River Writers Group, Lisa was first published in Free Verse.
