Our first reading spotlighted poets featured in New Poetry from the Midwest published by New American Press. Readers included Angela Voras-Hills, Lisa Vihos, Rebecca Dunham, Rita Mae Reese, Sean Karns, and Wendy Vardaman.
Watershed Reading: New Poetry from the Midwest
Rebecca Dunham's most recent collection of poems is Cold Pastoral from Milkweed Editions. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Sean Karns is the author of Jar of Pennies (New American Press, 2015), and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New Poetry from the Midwest, Hobart (web), Rattle, Pleiades, Los Angeles Review, Cold Mountain Review, Folio, Mayday Magazine, and elsewhere.
Rita Mae Reese is a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Stegner fellowship in fiction, a “Discovery”/The Nation award, and a Pamaunok Poetry Prize, among other awards. An animated video from the title poem of her first book, The Alphabet Conspiracy, was showcased at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Midwest Trade Show. Her second book, The Book of Hulga, was selected by Denise Duhamel for the Felix Pollak Prize in 2016. She designs Lesbian Poet Trading Cards for Headmistress Press, is a member of the bluegrass band Coulee Creek, and serves as Co-Director of Arts & Literature Laboratory.
Lisa Vihos is the 2015 winner of the Wisconsin People and Ideas Poetry contest and is working on her next book of poetry at her dining room table in Sheboygan, overlooking Lake Michigan.
Wendy Vardaman (wendyvardaman.com) is the author of Reliquary of Debt (LitFest Press 2015) and Obstructed View, co-editor of Local Ground(s)--Midwest Poetics and Echolocations, Poets Map Madison, founding co-editor of Cowfeather Press, and one of Madison's two Poets Laureate (2012-2015).
Angela Voras-Hills lives with her family in Milwaukee, WI. Her first book, Louder Birds (Pleiades 2020), was chosen by Traci Brimhall for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize. Other work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Best New Poets, Hayden's Ferry Review, Memorious, and New Ohio Review, among other journals and anthologies. She has received grants from The Sustainable Arts Foundation and Key West Literary Seminar, as well as a fellowship at Writers' Room of Boston.
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