Max Garland named Wisconsin Poet Laureate
I've been honored this year to join the Wisconsin Poet Laureate commission, and today am excited to announce that Max Garland has been appointed as our state's new laureate for 2013 - 2014. In honor of the announcement, I'm embedding the interview I did with Max a few years ago as part of my miPOradio podcast, "Hard to Say." It features Max reading from his first book, The Postal Confessions, and talking about his years working as a rural mail carrier. The episode was produced for miPOradio by Didi Menendez.
Press Release from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, & Letters:
A first generation college student, Max Garland left a ten-year career as a mail carrier to pursue his love of poetry. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1989 and has been teaching since 1990; currently he is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. In his first poetry collection, The Postal Confessions, which earned the prestigious Juniper Prize for Poetry, Garland chronicles his years carrying the mail in a classic American voice, discovering deeply felt significance within everyday experiences often drawn from the lives of the folks who lived on his rural mail route. Garland’s second book, Hunger Wide as Heaven, earned another national prize, this time from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, a leading force in the publishing and promotion of new American poetry. Of his book, poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes, “[t]here’s a welcoming world here you’ll recognize, as well as a wistfulness that feels perfectly pitched, leaning out to mystery … I’m a mad fan of the delicious, radiant poems of Max Garland.”
As Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate, Garland hopes to “reach out to those who may feel alienated from the world of poetry (or art), and yet have deeply felt experiences to record and honor…. [P]oetry is still a means of expression open to everyone. It’s one of those things that’s just too important to be left to experts.” In particular, Garland is “interested in promoting the connection between poetry and place, and urging young, as well as young-at-heart writers, to write of the places they know and explore their relationships with those places in poetry.”
This year’s pool of applicants was one of the strongest in the history of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate search. Narrowing the list to three finalists—Garland, Karla Huston (Appleton) and B. J. Best (West Bend)—proved difficult, and choosing among the three even more so. Huston, a retired high school English teacher, is a Pushcart Prize winner and author of six chapbooks, with a collection called A Theory of Lipstick forthcoming from Main Street Rag and a seventh chapbook planned from Dancing Girl Press. Best, a professor at Carroll University, has four chapbooks and four collections published or forthcoming, including Birds of Wisconsin, which won the Many Voices Project by New Rivers Press. “Both finalists are exceptional writers and proven advocates for the arts,” said WPLC Chair Cathryn Cofell. “We have urged Max to call upon this dynamic duo to help fulfill our mission of encouraging poetry’s importance in the cultural life of this state.”
In the end, the strength of Garland’s impressive resume and his soft-spoken, yet passionate way of connecting with widely diverse audiences gave him the edge. Garland will begin his term on January 1, 2013, supported by the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission under the stewardship of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. The commission consists of ten poets and lovers of poetry from across the state, including member organization representatives from the Council for Wisconsin Writers, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and the Wisconsin Academy. Garland will receive $2,000 and a week-long residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point each year he is Wisconsin Poet Laureate, in addition to a commemorative broadside and other recognition opportunities that come with the position.
Garland will replace the fourth Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Bruce Dethlefsen of Westfield, who made over 140 appearances throughout the state during his two-year term. “Makes me tired just thinking about it," said Dethlefsen, a retired librarian and author of two collections. “A good kind of tired, though; I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” Dethlefsen was serving as Wisconsin Poet Laureate when the post and the $2,000 annual travel reimbursement were eliminated from the state budget. Dethlefsen continued on with no funding and no home base until the Wisconsin Academy stepped in to support the program. As part of the stewardship arrangement, the Wisconsin Academy provides publicity and space for the commission and poets laureate on its website, and helps in the selection of new Wisconsin Poets Laureate. The Wisconsin Academy also acts as the fiscal sponsor to allow the commission to receive tax-deductible donations. For more information on, or to make a donation to, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, please visit wisconsinacademy.org/
Press Release from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, & Letters:
January 3, 2013
Contact: Cathryn Cofell, WPLC Chair, 920-209-0066
Jason A. Smith, WASAL communications director, 608.263.1692 x21
Jason A. Smith, WASAL communications director, 608.263.1692 x21
Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission Selects Next Poet Laureate
MADISON—The Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission has selected award-winning poet Max Garland of Eau Claire as the Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2013–2014. The commission praised Garland’s poetry for its richness of language, human understanding, and accessibility to broad audiences. A first generation college student, Max Garland left a ten-year career as a mail carrier to pursue his love of poetry. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1989 and has been teaching since 1990; currently he is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. In his first poetry collection, The Postal Confessions, which earned the prestigious Juniper Prize for Poetry, Garland chronicles his years carrying the mail in a classic American voice, discovering deeply felt significance within everyday experiences often drawn from the lives of the folks who lived on his rural mail route. Garland’s second book, Hunger Wide as Heaven, earned another national prize, this time from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, a leading force in the publishing and promotion of new American poetry. Of his book, poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes, “[t]here’s a welcoming world here you’ll recognize, as well as a wistfulness that feels perfectly pitched, leaning out to mystery … I’m a mad fan of the delicious, radiant poems of Max Garland.”
As Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate, Garland hopes to “reach out to those who may feel alienated from the world of poetry (or art), and yet have deeply felt experiences to record and honor…. [P]oetry is still a means of expression open to everyone. It’s one of those things that’s just too important to be left to experts.” In particular, Garland is “interested in promoting the connection between poetry and place, and urging young, as well as young-at-heart writers, to write of the places they know and explore their relationships with those places in poetry.”
This year’s pool of applicants was one of the strongest in the history of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate search. Narrowing the list to three finalists—Garland, Karla Huston (Appleton) and B. J. Best (West Bend)—proved difficult, and choosing among the three even more so. Huston, a retired high school English teacher, is a Pushcart Prize winner and author of six chapbooks, with a collection called A Theory of Lipstick forthcoming from Main Street Rag and a seventh chapbook planned from Dancing Girl Press. Best, a professor at Carroll University, has four chapbooks and four collections published or forthcoming, including Birds of Wisconsin, which won the Many Voices Project by New Rivers Press. “Both finalists are exceptional writers and proven advocates for the arts,” said WPLC Chair Cathryn Cofell. “We have urged Max to call upon this dynamic duo to help fulfill our mission of encouraging poetry’s importance in the cultural life of this state.”
In the end, the strength of Garland’s impressive resume and his soft-spoken, yet passionate way of connecting with widely diverse audiences gave him the edge. Garland will begin his term on January 1, 2013, supported by the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission under the stewardship of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. The commission consists of ten poets and lovers of poetry from across the state, including member organization representatives from the Council for Wisconsin Writers, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and the Wisconsin Academy. Garland will receive $2,000 and a week-long residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point each year he is Wisconsin Poet Laureate, in addition to a commemorative broadside and other recognition opportunities that come with the position.
Garland will replace the fourth Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Bruce Dethlefsen of Westfield, who made over 140 appearances throughout the state during his two-year term. “Makes me tired just thinking about it," said Dethlefsen, a retired librarian and author of two collections. “A good kind of tired, though; I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” Dethlefsen was serving as Wisconsin Poet Laureate when the post and the $2,000 annual travel reimbursement were eliminated from the state budget. Dethlefsen continued on with no funding and no home base until the Wisconsin Academy stepped in to support the program. As part of the stewardship arrangement, the Wisconsin Academy provides publicity and space for the commission and poets laureate on its website, and helps in the selection of new Wisconsin Poets Laureate. The Wisconsin Academy also acts as the fiscal sponsor to allow the commission to receive tax-deductible donations. For more information on, or to make a donation to, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, please visit wisconsinacademy.org/
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