Super pleased to hear that Notes from the Journey Westward has won the 2013 High Plains Book Award in Poetry! Lots of great finalists and winners this year, including Louise Erdrich, Emily Danforth, and David Abrams, among others!
Tag: Notes from the Journey Westward
Review of Notes from the Journey Westward
Big thanks to Montana Poet Laureate Tami Haaland for this careful, perceptive review of Notes from the Journey Westward. You couldn’t ask for a better review than this:
This book is visionary. It is admirably consistent and meditative, relentlessly honest in its rejection of any romantic version of the West, and reverent before stars and morning, before the earth and the people who have survived on it. Joe Wilkins honors them by telling their stories.
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.
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.
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 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.
The Voice of the Father
My poem “The Voice of the Father,” from my latest collection, Notes from the Journey Westward, is featured today at The Write Question’s blog.
Society of Midlands Authors
My second book of poems, Notes from the Journey Westward, has just been named a finalist for the 2012 Society of Midlands Authors Award for the best book of poetry by a Midwest author. You can read more about the award here.
The Book Stand
Notes from the Journey Westward, my second full-length collection of poems, is featured in the latest edition of The Book Stand at Newpages!
Best Poetry Collections of 2012
Really pleased to see Notes from the Journey Westward on The Scrapper Poet’s list of the Best Poetry Books of 2012. Great company here, including Kathleen Flenniken, Bruce Snider, Johnathan Williams, and many others.
