Very pleased to be opening Linfield College’s Readings at the Nick Series this year! I’ll be up at the mic on Thursday, September 26, at 7:30 pm, and we’ve got lots of great folks coming this year, including Monica Drake, Peter Malae, Elena Passarello, and Chris Dombrowski!
Category: News
Poem in Orion
My poem “Drought” appears in the latest issue of Orion. Lots of wonderful stuff in this issue (as always–Orion’s plain great!), including a stunning/scary essay on the breast cancer industrial complex by Jennifer Lunden and a dreamy meditation on borders, dying rivers, and ghosts by Luis Alberto Urrea.
Review of Notes from the Journey Westward
Thanks to Kathleen Kirk for this amazing review, up now at Escape Into Life, of my second book of poems, Notes from the Journey Westward. A few of my favorite lines:
Notes from the Journey Westward, by Joe Wilkins, reads like wisdom to me. “There’s nothing to be done / about hope,” he writes, in “Hardscrabble Prairie Triptych,” about cracking open mussel shells in search of pearls, and I feel directly addressed, required to examine the persistence and hopelessness of hope in myself, in us all, in the human animal: “We crack them open / anyway, shells bright as a boy’s eyes, / scoop out each stinking handful of meat.” The willingness to shift from “I” to “we” here is a clue to the risk and power of these poems, the great claim that one story can, like a covered wagon, carry many, and that history is somehow alive in the present moment.
“Out West” Reprinted in Draft: The Journal of Process
My essay “Out West” is reprinted in the current issue of Draft: The Journal of Process. But here’s the cool part: everything in Draft–along with my essay, there’s a poem by Matt Hart and a story by Roxanne Gary–is printed alongside an early version of the same piece, so you get to see behind the finished object. You get a glimpse of the process.
The issue also features an interview I did with one of the editors, the amazing Rachel Yoder, as well as a poem that came out of the drafting of “Out West.”
Poem at Poetry Daily
Earlier this week, my poem “Then I Packed You Up the Ridge Like a Brother on My Back,” from Notes from the Journey Westward, was featured at Poetry Daily.
Talking Writing and Nature with Pam Houston
As part of Scott Temple’s Wyld-Er-Ness documentary series, Pam Houston and I sat down on a snowy spring day in Boston and talked writing and nature. You can find the newly released video at Orion Magazine’s blog.
Review of Notes from the Journey Westward
A big thanks to Mark Allen Jenkins and Stirring for this insightful, kind review of Notes from the Journey Westward!
“Notes from the Bulls” in Orion
Though it isn’t available online, my story “Notes from the Bulls: the Unedited Journals of Verl Newman” is in the latest issue of Orion. Lots of wonderful work in this issue, including essays by Barry Lopez and Ander Monson, poetry by Todd Davis, and a series of stunning paintings by James Lavadour that accompany my story. Truly, there’s just no excuse not to be subscribed to Orion!
Lovely Review of The Mountain and the Fathers
Feeling really grateful for Chris Bowman’s insightful, lovely review of The Mountain and the Fathers on his blog at Capital Public Radio. A couple of quotes from the review:
More than a memoir, the book is an indictment of the ideology of rugged individualism so deeply rooted in the arid American West. …This book brings to mind novelist Wallace Stegner’s stories of those like his father who fell victim to the rain-follows-the-plow myth. …The Mountains and the Fathers is another poignant lesson in reconciling ourselves with our natural environment. …“We need to remember how it really was and is out West, and we need to tell those true new stories,” Wilkins writes. The Mountains and the Fathers is one of “true new stories,” well told.
Notes from the Journey Westward a High Plains Book Award finalist
Very pleased to see that my second collection of poems, Notes from the Journey Westward, has just been named a finalist for the 2013 High Plains Book Award. Lots of big names up for the High Plains Awards this year, including Richard Ford, Louise Erdrich, David Abrams, Alan Kesselheim, and Emily Danforth.
joewilkins.org 