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2020 Poetry Selections

Beginning in 2018, Madison Public Library celebrated National Poetry Month by posting a poem a day throughout the entire month of April. In 2020, selections were curated by City of Madison Poet Laureate, Angela Trudell Vasquez

by Ross Gay
Why I chose this poem:

Ross Gay read this poem in 2016 at Split This Rock which was cancelled this year. I was to have been on two panels, one I wrote and one I was to be a participant of along with some friends. I chose to close with the poem because that is how I feel about this entire month, one of great gratitude. When Ross read this poem at Split This Rock tears ran down my face. This is the power of poetry. His work is marvelous and rich.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/30/20
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by C.D. Wright
Why I chose this poem:

I love C. D. Wrights work. I studied her while getting my MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts. My thesis advisor Santee Frazier had her as a mentor. In this way I too feel a connection to her poetry. I continue to study her work and read her poems.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/29/20
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by Jennifer Foerster
Why I chose this poem:

I am currently reading Jennifer Foerster’s latest book, Bright Raft in the Afterweather, in which this poem appears. Her work deserves careful attention. I read and reread the poems finding something new to be excited about. Jennifer came to Wisconsin in late February of this year pre-pandemic, and read at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. I left work early to crash the poet dinner party and attend her reading. I am so glad I did especially now! I look forward to the day when we can have public readings again, and be in community.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/28/20
by Layli Long Soldier
Why I chose this poem:

Layli Long Soldier’s book, Whereas, lived in my back pack daily for six months. It rode with me from Madison to Milwaukee when I was still working for the ACLU of Wisconsin, and was more often than not my lunch companion. I really love this book. I studied and tried to absorb the craft, the lines, the placement of the words on the page. I have recommended it to many people. My copy is well worn and annotated. I hope to get it signed someday post pandemic.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/27/20
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Cover of Whereas
Layli Long
Soldier
by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Why I chose this poem:

I studied Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s work during my MFA at IAIA. I focused on her work in my thesis. She too went to IAIA. Now I am FaceBook friends with her, and follow her posts. I was thrilled when I saw her friend request! I love her poetry and someday may share my thesis with her where I explore her technique and use of caesuras in her book, Dog Road Woman. Despite being the Madison Poet Laureate and used to speaking publicly and reading my poems, I am still a shy girl from the Midwest, and especially so when I meet literary giants.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/26/20
by Arthur Sze
Why I chose this poem:

Arthur Sze taught at IAIA. He taught many of my poetry mentors at IAIA while they were undergraduates. In this way I too have been influenced by Arthur Sze. His poetry, his poetry, wow, what can I say. Read it. Live it. Breathe it. I have lines of his poems on my refrigerator and as I make my morning tea or coffee I gaze at them. I had the opportunity to hear him read at AWP in Portland in 2019. I asked him to sign my book and thanked him for his poetry, and for teaching my mentors who in turn shared his gifts with me.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/25/20
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Cover of Sight Lines
Arthur
Sze
by Jon Davis
Why I chose this poem:

Jon Davis was the MFA director who accepted me into IAIA and changed the trajectory of my life. I still remember sitting at my desk, AKA my dining room table, the same one I am sitting at now typing up these words. I ran and shouted to my husband, “I got into IAIA.” I had also been accepted into Columbia College in Chicago, and was weighing the two options. I chose the Institute of American Indian Arts and this made all the difference for me. I had never been to Sante Fe, New Mexico. Now I have this larger circle of friends from all over the world. Funny how one thing can completely change your life, and open your world. Jon Davis did this for me. Jon’s poetry is sublime. His books many. His knowledge about poetry and craft is huge. His work has great heart. He was among the first people I told about my Madison Poet Laureateship.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/24/20
by Santee Frazier
Why I chose this poem:

Santee Frazier was one of my first teachers at IAIA when I was getting my MFA, and the last person I studied while finishing my thesis. In my second to last semester, I sent him a poem every morning before going to work. Just like now I would wake up early to edit my poems, having done so the previous night as well. I would go to sleep with lines in my head and wake up to lines in my head. Santee is now the director for the MFA program at IAIA following Jon Davis. I saw him recently at AWP and he has a fabulous new book out entitled, Aurum: Poems. This poem I chose for today is from his first book, Dark Thirty. I woke to a poem by him this AM, selected by Joy Harjo for poetry month. Santee is such a generous teacher, has such good instincts, and really cares about the students. I am so fortunate to have had him as a mentor.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/23/20
by Joan NaviyukKane
Why I chose this poem:

Joan Naviyuk Kane was one of my mentors at IAIA. Her poetry and intellect are amazing. She taught me so much. We once had almost an hour conversation about commas. I am forever in debt to her and love her work. You can come back to it again and again and see something different. I would not be the poet I am today without her mentorship. She once said to us in a workshop, “Imagination is the greater activism.” I think about this all the time.

Joan Naviyuk Kane has authored seven books and chapbooks of poetry and prose, most recently Another Bright Departure (CutBank, 2019), along with The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife (NorthShore Press, 2009), Hyperboreal (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), The Straits (Center for the Study of Place, 2015), Milk Black Carbon (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), A Few Lines in the Manifest (Albion Books, 2018), and Sublingual (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Her artistic interests concern the role of lyric and story whose urgency and vitality is carried forward into the present and future by contemporary indigenous writers.

Posted 4/22/20
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Cover of Milk Black Carbon
Joan
Naviyuk Kane
by Sherwin Bitsui
Why I chose this poem:

This is an excerpt from the book, Dissolve. I studied with Sherwin Bitsui at IAIA. I learned so much from him about the craft of poetry, and how to become a careful reader and editor of my own work. I also studied his work as a MFA student, and when you really examine what it is he is doing on the page you can become lost for hours. I greatly admire his work. His voice is in my head when I edit and sculpt poems on the page. Sherwin was one of the first people I told about my Madison Poet Laureateship. I owe much to him.

Sherwin Bitsui, a Diné (Navajo) from the Navajo Reservation in White Cone, Arizona, received an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program. He is the author of the poetry collections Shapeshift (2003) and Flood Song (2009).
Steeped in Native American culture, mythology, and history, Bitsui’s poems reveal the tensions in the intersection of Native American and contemporary urban culture. His poems are imagistic, surreal, and rich with details of the landscape of the Southwest. Flood Song is a book-length lyric sequence that explores the traditions of Native American writing through postmodern fragment and stream of consciousness.

Posted 4/21/20
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Cover of Dissolve
Sherwin
Bitsui
by Joy Harjo
Why I chose this poem:

I studied Joy Harjo’s work at IAIA. This is a poem I often share with young people in workshops. I like this poem for many reasons: the truck stop reference, interstate 80 reference, this poem was written when she was at the University of Iowa with Sandra Cisneros. This is where I am from and where I was raised. My Dad went to the University of Iowa, we lived there as a family in the student family housing, and I went there for a time as an under grad. I have eaten in many truck stops along this route. I feel a connection to this poem. Plus, the language, the word choices, the diction in this poem is wonderful.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/20/20
by Jean Valentine
Why I chose this poem:

Jean Valentine’s poem, “Door in the Mountain.” I walk around my house reciting this poem. There is so much here in this short poem. So many directions you can go and interpretations. I feel this poem strongly in my bones. I was first introduced to it during a craft talk Joan Naviyuk Kane gave at IAIA in Santa Fe, NM during my MFA.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/19/20
by Irena Klepfisz
Why I chose this poem:

Bashert is a Yiddish word that Klepfisz uses to mean multiple things: inevitability, a sense of finality, hopelessness, inexplicability.  Irena Klepfisz is a holocaust survivor and every time I read this poem I am moved by how she juxtaposes the two parts of the poem: "These words are dedicated to those who died" and "these words are dedicated to those who survived." During a pandemic this poem has resonated with me.

Posted 4/18/20
by Audre Lorde
Why I chose this poem:
I perceive the speaker in the poem as grieving and experiencing loss, which I think is a universal feeling we can all relate to at some point and especially during these unprecedented COVID-19 times.  Then this is juxtaposed with the efforts of the young boy to maintain and encourage life which gives me a feeling of hope for the future.   Unrelated to the poem itself, a complimentary musical piece is also bringing me similar hope to what I feel from this poem.  Enjoy, if you wish, "Truly Brave" performed in social isolation by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. (via YouTube)
Posted 4/17/20

Origins and History of Consciousness

by Adrienne Rich
Why I chose this poem:

"Why do you (or I) write? / Why do I (or you) read?" Questions so carefully articulated and honestly answered in Adrienne Rich's philosophical poem. "The drive to connect. The dream of a common language." The title of the poem is shared with a book by psychologist and philosopher Erich Neumann, written in 1949. I haven't read the book, so can't do much of a comparison with Rich's work, but I can only assume that she is somehow commenting on Neumann's assertion that "consciousness is masculine" and "the unconscious is feminine," and therefore adding yet another layer to this poem that is also decidedly feminist. And it also deals with trauma, in a very therapeutic way, by sharing the dream with those who are ready to emerge from sleep, out of the shadows and out of the inner darkness of Plato's cave.

Posted 4/16/20
by Carolyn Forche’
Why I chose this poem:

I was introduced to Carolyn Forche’ as an undergraduate at Drake University. This poem was the first poem of hers I read and it changed me as a writer, poet and spoke to me. It blew my mind and I felt it deep in my bones. It gave me a window into another realm of poetry. I was already a writer when I read this and an activist. Carolyn was a young poet when she wrote this and I was a young poet when I came upon her work at Drake – I had very good teachers. I have spent my whole career with her as the shining example of what a writer can do on the page melting heart and body and breath on the page. I LOVE all her work and follow her. When I had the chance to meet her in Milwaukee I felt like my whole life had pointed me in this direction, and we know some of the same poets from IAIA where I went to graduate school. I feel so blessed to have been hugged by her. I gave her my books and told her how I modeled by first book, The Force Your Face Carries, after her book, The Country Between Us. I teach this poem often and come back to it again and again. I know our lives are hard right now. We can get through this though our brothers and sisters across the globe have dealt with much more. Our ancestors have endured. We can too.

Angie Trudell Vasquez (Mexican-American 2nd & 3rd generation Iowan) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been published in Taos Journal of Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, Cloudthroat, and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She has poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and was a Ruth Lilly fellow as an undergraduate at Drake University. Her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She co-guest edited the Spring 2019 edition of the Yellow Medicine Review. She serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission, and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. On January 20, 2020 she became Madison’s newest Poet Laureate.

Posted 4/15/20
by Dylan Thomas
Why I chose this poem:

As we near a new season every sensation comes alive in this transition.
Our traditions of Summers in Wisconsin are now being challenged in a big way.
Am I suggesting going outside and having a rave no not at all.
Like how in a winter death grip, we withstand against the freezing temperatures to endure and make a home, so we must endure with the same steadfastness the enclosures of day, and take each ray as a beacon for a better tomorrow.
Do not go gentle into summer, keep vigilant, keep safe, stay home, but certainly enjoy the dying light of the long dusk. 

Araceli Esparza is a local Latinx poeta, Chingona and podcast host of Midwest Mujeres - www.midwestmujeres.com.

Posted 4/14/20
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by Langston Hughes
Why I chose this poem:

It's my favorite: This poem reminds me of King's Dream speech. It's a very influential poem.

A 2018 Pushcart nominee, Vida Cross is a blues poet.  Her book of poetry, Bronzeville at Night: 1949, references her ancestry as a third generation Chicagoan, a Bronzeville resident, and the artwork of Archibald J. Motley Jr..  She received an MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a Cave Canem Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Creativity and Constraint Anthology for Wising Up Press, A Civil Rights Retrospective with the Black Earth Institute, Tabula Poetica with Chapman University, Transitions Magazine at the Hutchinson Institute, the Cave Canem Anthology XII: Poems 2008-2009, The Literary Review with Fairleigh Dickinson University, Reed Magazine at Reed College, and The Journal of Film and Video from The University of Illinois, Chicago.

Posted 4/13/20
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Cover of Let America Be America Aga
Langston
Hughes
Antonio Frasconi
by Veronica Patterson
Why I chose this poem:

This poem crossed my screen in the early days of COVID-19, as we were all removing into our homes. I found it spoke to me directly and I've kept it close. It helps me keep the noise at bay.

In addition to being a poet and Qoya dance teacher, Sarah Sadie is the founder of Studio Sadie. You can learn more about her and her work at https://studiosadie.world

Posted 4/12/20
by Carrie Fountain
Why I chose this poem:

I became an insta fan of Carrie Fountain’s poetry when I stumbled upon the poem “The Jungle” last month in the American Poetry Review (Vol 49, No2). I almost picked “The Jungle” for Poem-a-Day, but “Want,” written in 2010, seems apropos this April, as we are suspended together “floating in and out” of uncertainty like Fountain’s sad, busy wasps. We can brace for the unknown suffering coming our way, yet work from our bald headed nests, start seeds indoors, cook big meals for families reunited by COVID19, watch Tiger King on Netflix, go through with weddings or postpone them until next year. We skeptically conjure futures based on the imaginary ones we envisioned in the obsolete past. We do not know how to tweak our own fantasies so that we can believe them fully, but we keep going. “Want” offers an aspirational strategy for navigating life’s unpredictability.  “Learning” as fountain writes, “how to hold hopelessness and hope together.”

 

Posted 4/11/20
by Katrin Talbot
Why I chose this poem:

Why I chose this poem: Katrin has been penning and sharing new poems as the new realities of COVID-19 have been settling in. I believe that the arts will help get us through this crisis and I am so grateful to Katrin and countless other artists in our community who are capturing and preserving these strange moments with such grace and eloquence. 

Australian-born Katrin Talbot is a violist, freelance photographer, and poet. Her most recent collection is The Blind Lifeguard (Finishing line Press). Katrin's work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies and she is the author of four other chapbooks: The Little Red Poem and noun'd, verb from dancing girl press; Freeze Dried Love from Finishing Line Press; and St. Cecilia's Daze, from Parallel Press. Katrin lives in the Madison, Wisconsin area; learn more about her at https://www.katrintalbot.com/

Posted 4/10/20
by James Wright
Why I chose this poem:

Every time I teach this in class, students always find something new to latch onto.  Sometimes it's the animals, sometimes its the people, sometimes it's the place, sometimes it's the feeling associated with the swirl of it all.  I love hearing how every student finds something here to love and hope for.

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians and the Weird in Flyover Country, The Road South: Personal Stories of the Freedom Riders, among others. Hollars is the recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Nonfiction, the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, the Council of Wisconsin Writers' Blei-Derleth Award, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.  He is the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild and an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He lives a simple existence with his wife, their children, and their dog.

Posted 4/9/20
by William Stafford
Why I chose this poem:

It's a poem that speaks accurately of the poet's work and the poet's life.

Abayomi Animashaun is an immigrant from Nigeria and the author of two poetry collections, The Giving of Pears and Sailing for Ithaca.

Posted 4/8/20
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by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Why I chose this poem:

I read this poem when I was in high school in New York City and loved it right away. I always come back to it.

Ronnie Hess is a Madison-based poet, the author of five chapbooks, and past-Chair of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.

Posted 4/7/20
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by Mary Oliver
Why I chose this poem:

Who among us doesn't adore and revere trees? In under 20 lines, Mary Oliver succeeds in creating a tribute equal to our love. This was one of my mother's favorite poems, and is a universal reminder of our symbiotic connection with these gentle giants among us.

Jodi Vander Molen represents the Wisconsin Humanities Council on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Jodi grew up on a small farm, and has kept a journal for 34 years. She was a poetry editor at The Progressive Magazine, and can be found reading at the many open mics and poetry slams her home of Madison, WI offers. Her weekly Tuesday haiku project and more work can be found on Instagram @jvwords.

Posted 4/6/20
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by Robert Hayden
Why I chose this poem:

I don't have a favorite poem, though I have many that I dearly love.  This is one of them.  And it's short.  Which might encourage people to actually read it.  In my home office, the amazing artist Dee Hutch tagged one of the walls with lines of poems I love in graffiti text, including the last sentence in this poem.  Hayden is one of only two poets with more than one line on the wall, because there's a line from his "Ballad of Nat Turner" included on the wall, too (the other poet with two lines on the wall is John Donne).  Reading much of Hayden's work is like looking at the Grand Canyon, to me.  It's just unfathomable how normal people can create such powerful little things sometimes.

Nick Demske lives in Racine Wisconsin and works as a children's librarian at the Racine Public Library. In his community, he's very involved in local politics, racial justice work and criminal justice reform. He is also an elected official (County Supervisor, Racine County Dist 1). Nick is author of a self-titled collection of poems which was chosen for the Fence Modern Poets Series prize by Joyelle McSweeney and published by Fence Books in 2010.

Posted 4/5/20
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Cover of Collected Poems
Robert
Hayden

The Dream of Now

by William Stafford
Why I chose this poem:

I memorized this poem the day I first read it, many years ago.  Stafford was one of the first poets I came to love that I didn't learn about in school.

Ed Werstein, WFOP representative on the Poet Laureate Commission, received the Lorine Niedecker Prize in 2018 from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.

Posted 4/4/20
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Cover of Passwords
Passwords
William
Stafford
by Li Po (translation by Sam Hamill)
Why I chose this poem:

The sense of this poem suggests our belonging to something larger than the "I" of ego, an understanding I try to nurture in myself and, through my own poetry, nurture in others. We have all had those transformational or ecstatic experiences when the "me"  has disappeared, when for a moment we are lifted out of ordinary realms like time. Although Li Po's poem alludes to zazen meditation, it also shows a speaker centered in and connecting with nature.  In our "social isolation" we might find good company in the beings of the natural world.

Kimberly Blaeser, writer, photographer, and scholar, served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2015-16. She is a Professor of English and Indigenous Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee and an MFA faculty member for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. The author of four collections of poetry, most recently Copper Yearning and Apprenticed to Justice, Blaeser is Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and grew up on White Earth Reservation. A bi-lingual French/English collection of her poetry, Résister en dansee/Dancing Resistance will be published by Éditions des Lisières in 2020.

Posted 4/3/20
by Ada Limón
Why I chose this poem:

I love the language--each word (skin suit! field bling!) reveals a luminous reality just underneath the surface of things. Limón makes me aware of light--in myself, in nature, in others--where I might have otherwise missed it.

Kate Vieira is associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She researches and teaches about the power of writing in everyday lives. www.katevieira.com

Posted 4/2/20
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by Elizabeth Bishop
Why I chose this poem:

It's highly structured, a villanelle, but it reads conversationally.  The ability to get that effect shows amazing poetic skill.  I also identify with the theme.

Posted 4/1/20
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