by James Crews
William Stafford’s (1914–1993) first collection of poems, West of Your City, was published when he was in his mid-forties. However, by the time of his death in 1993, Stafford had published hundreds of poems. His collection Traveling Through the Dark won the National Book Award in 1963. Stafford also received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship, and the Western States Book Award Lifetime Achievement in Poetry.
Joyce Sutphen grew up on a small farm in Stearns County, Minnesota. Her first collection of poems, Straight Out of View, won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. Her recent books are The Green House (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and Carrying Water to the Field: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). She is Minnesota poet laureate and professor emerita of literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.
Heather Swan is the author of A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books); the chapbook The Edge of Damage (Parallel Press); and the nonfiction book Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field (Penn State Press), which won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Cold Mountain, Phoebe, Iris, Midwestern Gothic, The Hopper, and Basalt. Her nonfiction has appeared in Aeon, Minding Nature, ISLE, Belt Magazine, and Edge Effects. She teaches environmental literature and writing at University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012); The Daodejing: A New Interpretation (Lamar University Literary Press, 2015); and Invocation (2015). His poems have appeared in Appalachia, Commonweal, Miramar, North American Review, Rattle, Sunken Garden Poetry, upstreet, and on The Writer’s Almanac. Swist lives in South Amherst, Massachusetts.
Tess Taylor is the author of Rift Zone (Red Hen Press); The Forage House; Work & Days, named one of the best books of poetry in 2016 by the New York Times; and The Misremembered World, selected by Eavan Boland for the Poetry Society of America’s inaugural chapbook fellowship. She published Last West (2020) as part of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She is a poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered.
Francine Marie Tolf is the author of Rain, Lilies, Luck (North Star Press, 2010) as well as a memoir, essay collection, and a number of chapbooks. Her poems and essays have been published in numerous journals. She lives and works in Minneapolis.
Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange, winner of the Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry; To the Bone (Sundress, 2020); and What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books, 2021). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Missouri Review, Quarterly West, Cortland Review, and PANK. Torres received the 2019 Yeats Poetry Prize (W. B. Yeats Society of New York), and has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Illinois Arts Council, and Ragdale Foundation. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she is an editor for RHINO Poetry.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives on the banks of the San Miguel River in southwest Colorado. She served as Colorado Western Slope poet laureate (2015–2017) and San Miguel County poet laureate (2007–2011). She cohosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), is cofounder of Secret Agents of Change, and codirects Telluride’s Talking Gourds Poetry Club. Her poetry has appeared in O Magazine and Rattle, on A Prairie Home Companion, and on river rocks. She has written 13 poetry collections, most recently Hush, winner of the Halcyon Prize for poems of human ecology. She teaches poetry for addiction recovery programs, hospice, mindfulness retreats, women’s retreats, scientists, and others. ahundredfallingveils.com and wordwoman.com
Ron Wallace is the author of more than 20 books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including For Dear Life, For a Limited Time Only, and Long for This World: New and Selected Poems. Founder and director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s program in creative writing, he is Felix Pollak Professor Emeritus and editor of the University of Wisconsin Press Poetry Series. He divides his time between Madison and a 40-acre farm in Bear Valley, Wisconsin, where he tends a large vegetable garden, helps his wife, Peg, restore prairie, bird-watches, and mows eight miles of grass and sweet clover with his power push mower.
Connie Wanek was born in Wisconsin, raised in New Mexico, and now lives in Duluth, Minnesota. Her first book, Bonfire (New Rivers, 1997), won the New Voices Award. She is also the author of Hartley Field (Holy Cow!, 2002), On Speaking Terms (Copper Canyon, 2010), Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), and the chapbook Consider the Lilies: Mrs. God Poems (Will o’ the Wisp, 2018). Forthcoming from Candlewick Press is a children’s book of poetry cowritten with Ted Kooser.
Laura Grace Weldon is the author of Blackbird (Grayson Books, 2019) and Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013), as well as a handbook for alternative education, Free Range Learning (Hohm Press, 2010). She was named 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year. Her background includes teaching nonviolence classes, facilitating support groups for abuse survivors, and writing collaborative poetry with nursing home residents. lauragraceweldon.com
Cynthia White’s poems have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Narrative, ZYZZYVA, Grist, and Catamaran, among others. She won the Julia Darling Memorial Prize from Kallisto Gaia Press. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Diana Whitney writes across genres on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. Her first book, Wanting It, won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. She was the poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she featured women authors and LGBTQ voices in her column. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Glamour, the Washington Post, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. A feminist activist, she is a senior contributing editor at HealthyWomen.org. Her latest project is How to Be Real: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves (Workman, 2021). diana-whitney.com
Michelle Wiegers is a poet and life coach based in Southern Vermont. Her work has appeared in Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection, Birchsong Anthology, and Third Wednesday, among other journals. In her mind-body life coaching work, she is a passionate advocate for those in chronic pain. michellewiegers.com
Katherine Williams’s poems have been published in Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, Voices, and the anthologies The Widows’ Handbook and The Poet’s Cookbook. She is associate professor emerita at George Washington University and works as a psychologist and art therapist in private practice.
Credits
“Moon” by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Any Common Desolation” and “Getting Into Bed on a December Night” from Indigo. Copyright © 2016, 2020 by Ellen Bass. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org
“Perceptive Prayer” by Grace Bauer from Nowhere All at Once (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) Copyright © 2014 Grace Bauer. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Weather” by George Bilgere, from Imperial Copyright © 2014. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
“Laughter” by Dale Biron from Why We Do Our Daily Practices Copyright © 2014 Mule Pack Press and published on Gratefulness.org. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Work” by Sally Bliumis-Dunn, from Echolocation (Plume Editions/Mad Hat Press) Copyright © 2018 Sally Bliumis-Dunn. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Bus Stop” from A New Hunger. Copyright © 2007 by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org
“In Gratitude” by Abigail Carroll, from Habitation of Wonder (Cascade Books). Copyright © 2018 Abigail Carroll. Reprinted with permission of the author and used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. wipfandstock.com
“Morning” by Kristen Case, from Little Arias (New Issues Poetry & Prose) Copyright © 2015 Kristen Case. Reprinted with permission of author and publisher.
“An Es
say on Age” by Judith Chalmer, from Minnow (Kelsay Books, 2020) and first published in the DMQ Review (2012). Copyright © 2020 Judith Chalmer. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“the lesson of the falling leaves” by Lucille Clifton, from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., boaeditions.org
“Everybody Made Soups” by Lisa Coffman, from Less Obvious Gods (Iris Press) Copyright © 2013 Lisa Coffman. Reprinted with permission of author and Iris Press.
“Down to Earth” and “Darkest Before Dawn” by James Crews from Bluebird (Green Writers Press, 2020) Copyright © 2020 James Crews. “Winter Morning” from Every Waking Moment (Lynx House Press, 2020) Copyright © 2020 James Crews, republished on Gratefulness.org and in American Life in Poetry. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Promise” and “Autism Poem: The Grid” by Barbara Crooker, from Radiance (Word Press, 2005) Copyright © 2005 Barbara Crooker. “Tomorrow” by Barbara Crooker from Some Glad Morning Copyright © 2019. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
“Mending” by Noah Davis, from Of This River (Michigan State University Press) Copyright © 2020 by Noah Davis. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Thankful for Now” by Todd Davis, from Native Species Copyright © 2019 Todd Davis (Michigan State University Press, 2019). Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Apple Blossoms” by Susan Kelly-DeWitt, from Gravitational Tug (Main Street Rag) Copyright © 2020 Susan Kelly-DeWitt. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Wingspan” by Amy Dryansky, originally published in The SUN. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Pledge” by Jehanne Dubrow. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Angel” by Terri Kirby Erickson, from Becoming the Blue Heron (Press 53) Copyright © 2017 Terri Kirby Erickson. “What Matters” by Terri Kirby Erickson, from A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53) Copyright © 2020 Terri Kirby Erickson. Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher.
“Summer Apples” by Catherine Essinger, from The Apricot and the Moon (Dos Madres Press) Copyright © 2020 Catherine Essinger. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Reincarnate” by Patricia Fargnoli from Hallowed: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2017 by Patricia Fargnoli. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Tupelo Press, tupelopress.org
“Everything Is Made of Labor” by Farnaz Fatemi. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Against Panic” by Molly Fisk. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“The Once Invisible Garden” by Laura Foley, originally published in Sheila-Na-Gig. “To See It” by Laura Foley, from It’s This (Salmon Poetry, 2021). “Gratitude List,” from Why I Never Finished My Dissertation (Headmistress Press) Copyright © 2019. All reprinted with permission of author.
“Sap Icicles” by Patricia Fontaine. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Wondrous” by Sarah Freligh, from Sad Math (Moon City Press) Copyright © 2015 Sarah Freligh. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Offering” by Albert Garcia. Originally published in Catamaran Literary Reader, Summer 2018. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Wedding Poem” by Ross Gay, from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay Copyright © 2015. Reprinted with permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.
“Because the Night You Asked” by Crystal S. Gibbins, from Now/Here, Holy Cow! Press. Copyright © 2017 by Crystal S. Gibbins. Reprinted with permission of the author and publisher. holycowpress.org
“Motherhood” Jessica Gigot, from Flood Patterns (Antrim House Press) Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Gigot. Reprinted with permission of author and publisher.
“Leaning to the Light” by Alice Wolf Gilborn, from Apples & Stones Copyright © 2020 Kelsay Books. Reprinted with permission of the author and publisher.
“Growing Apples” Nancy Miller Gomez, from Punishment (Rattle) Copyright © 2014 Nancy Miller Gomez. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“At the Age of 18—Ode to Girls of Color” by Amanda Gorman. Text copyright © 2016 by Amanda Gorman. Reprinted by permission of Writers House LLC acting as agent for the author.
“Listening for Your Name” by David Graham, from The Honey of Earth. Copyright © 2019 by David Graham. Reprinted by permission of Terrapin Books.
“Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo, from In Mad Love and War. Copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Reprinted with permission.
“Nest” by Jeffrey Harrison from Into Daylight. Copyright © 2014 by Jeffrey Harrison. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Tupelo Press, tupelopress.org
“In the Dark” by Penny Harter, from The Resonance Around Us (Mountains and Rivers Press) Copyright © 2013 Penny Harter. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“With Trees” by Margaret Hasse, from Between Us (Nodin Press) Copyright © 2016 Margaret Hasse. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“The Fish” by Jane Hirshfield and “Today, When I Could Do Nothing” by Jane Hirshfield, originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle (March 23, 2020 edition). Reprinted with permission of the author.
“The Word” by Tony Hoagland, from Sweet Ruin. Copyright © 1992 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.
“Innocence” by Linda Hogan, from Dark. Sweet.: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 2014 by Linda Hogan. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Coffee House Press, coffeehousepress.org
“The Newborns” by Kathryn Hunt, from Long Way Through Ruin (Blue Begonia Press) Copyright © 2013. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“September Swim” by Rob Hunter, from September Swim (Spoon River Poetry Press). Copyright © 2005 by Rob Hunter. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Summer Cottage” by Mary Elder Jacobsen. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Unclouded Vision” by Jacqueline Jules, previously published in The Healing Muse (October 2017). Reprinted with permission of the author.
“My Daughter’s Singing” by Garret Keizer, from The World Pushes Back. Copyright © 2019 Garret Keizer. Reprinted with permission of Texas Review Press and author.
“Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer” by Jane Kenyon, from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, graywolfpress.org
“Third Year of My Mother’s Dementia” by Lynne Knight, from Night in the Shape of a Mirror (WordTech) Copyright © 2006 Lynne Knight. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Dandelion,” “Easter Morning,” and “A Dervish of Leaves” by Ted Kooser Copyright © 2020 Ted Kooser. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Improvement” by Danusha Laméris, from Bonfire Opera by Danusha Laméris Copyright © 2020. Reprinted by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press. “Goldfinches” and “Aspen” by Danusha Laméris Copyright © 2020 Danusha Laméris. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Two Weeks After a Silent Retreat” by Heather Lanier Copyright © 2020 Heather Lanier, originally published in The SUN. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“In Any Event” by Dorianne Laux, originally published in Raleigh Review. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee, from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., boaeditions.org
“Notions” by Paula Gordon Lepp. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“A Cure Against Poisonous Thought” by Annie Lighthart, from Iron String (Airlie Press). Copyright © 2013 Annie Lighthart. Reprinted with permission of th
e author.
“Too Many to Count” by Alison Luterman. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Old Friends” by Freya Manfred, from Loon in Late November Water, Copyright © 2018 by Freya Manfred (Red Dragonfly Press). Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Part of the Landscape” by Joan Mazza. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Forgiveness” by Mary McCue. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Climbing the Golden Mountain” by Michael Kiesow Moore, from The Song Castle (Nodin Press) Copyright © 2018 by Michael Kiesow Moore. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“To Ask” by Julie Murphy. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Language, Prayer, and Grace” by Mark Nepo Copyright © 2020 Mark Nepo. Reprinted with permission of the author. “In Love with the World” from Things That Join the Sea and the Sky Copyright © 2017 Mark Nepo and used with permission of author and publisher, Sounds True, Inc.
“Valentine’s Day” by Gail Newman, from Blood Memory Copyright © 2020 Gail Newman, published by Marsh Hawk Press. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Missing Key” by Heather Newman. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Over the Weather” from A Maze Me by Naomi Shihab Nye; Illustrated by Terre Maher. Text copyright © 2005 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Hoodie” from Rewilding. Copyright © 2018 by January Gill O’Neil. “In the Company of Women” from Misery Islands. Copyright © 2014 by January Gill O’Neil. Both reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of CavanKerry Press, Ltd., cavankerrypress.org
“Shells” by Christen Pagett. Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Let It Rain” and “Rosary” by Brad Peacock. Reprinted with permission of the author.