Shari Wagner
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Through the Sycamores

Exploring the Hoosier Landscape with Indiana's Poet Laureate
PictureThanks to Terri Gorney for this photo from Mounds State Park and the above image as well.
     November 2020    

               
"This spot where you sit is your own spot.  It is this very spot and in
               this very moment 
that you can become enlightened. You don't have to
               sit beneath a special tree in a distant land."

                                                        Thich Nhat Hanh, monk, poet, and peace activist

​
       During my two-year term as Indiana's fifth Poet Laureate, I was honored to
       represent poetry in a state that has shaped my artistic vision in so 
many ways and
      given me such a wealth of subjects to explore.  I am filled with gratitude as I think
      of the people who welcomed me into their libraries and classrooms or joined me for
      programs at historic sites and parks. Thank you for your invitations, participation at
      my events, and readership of this website.

       If you would like for me to present a poetry workshop or reading at your library,
      school, literary club or other organization, please email me through this website.
 Due
      to the corona virus, all such events will be held online or outdoors.   
                                                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                   Shari Wagner, Indiana Poet Laureate 2016-2017                                                                                                  www.shariwagnerpoet.com/               

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                                        Matthew Graham: Indiana Poet Laureate, 2020-2021                   

Matthew Graham from Evansville became Indiana's seventh Poet Laureate on January 1, 2020.  He is the author of four books of poems, including The Geography of Home (Galileo Press, 2018), and his work has earned many awards, including a Pushcart Prize, an Academy of American Poets Award, two grants from the Indiana Arts Commission, and the Artist of the Year Award from the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana. Matthew recently retired from the University of Southern Indiana where he taught creative writing and literature. He's also worked with diverse writing groups such as high school students and community writing groups and co-founded and co-directed (with Thomas Wilhelmus) The Ropewalk Writers' Retreat, a summer program that brought national and international writers to New Harmony, Indiana for 22 years, and the Ropewalk Visiting Writers Series, which brought prominent fiction and non-fiction writers and poets to the USI campus for free public readings. 

Marcus Wicker on The Geography of Home:
 
"With longing, elegiac notes, wry humor, and an Edward Hopper-esque paint brush, Matthew Graham traverses the topography of a life made satisfyingly whole through a steadfast examination of the everyday, the cosmopolitan, and the contemplative. It's a potent combination that reminds me, in this moment of political divisiveness, that unwavering interiority is the first step toward bridging the invisible boundaries that divide us. THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOME marks a poet at the height of his powers: wise, stinging, and wonderfully alive. You have to read these poems."

Click here to read Matthew's poem "Terminal" on the Indiana Humanities website.

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          My new book of poems, The Farm Wife's Almanac, was shortlisted for the 2020
          Indiana Authors Award and is available through 
Cascadia Publishing House.   
          Listen to Garrison Keillor read "The farm wife turns off the TV evangelist."    
       
​         "'Iva's tongue was honey-sweet and stung like a bee,' the poet writes, an apt description
           of Wagner's own poetic gifts, on full display in The Farm Wife's Almanac. Rich in pathos
          and humor, this is a collection that embodies the culture from which it was birthed, a
          true celebration of living close to the land."
                                                                       Todd David, Author, Native Species and Winterkill


       
  "The farm wife names children after beloved cows, plays Rook, and wants to be buried
          in a root cellar. In poem after poem we see what might appear to be a sheltered, insular
          life in its true and astonishing expansiveness. These are poems of both intensity and calm
          beauty, transformative in their vision of the holiness in the everyday."
                                                                       Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner, Author, What Cannot Be Fixed and
                                                                       Poetry Editor, The Christian Century


                                                                                          "Wagner gently lifts the life of a farm wife into view, then dazzles the reader with insights 
                                                                                                               that surprise and enlarge, drawing us into the history of both restriction and wonder, so
                                                                                                               that we too can imagine 'releasing the parachutes of milkweed' for the return of 'whirling
                                                                                                               monarchs so thick they block the sun.'"
                                                                                                                                                                            Jean Janzen, Author, What the Body Knows
                                                                                                     

Matt Pelsor of ALL IN interviewed me and all of the poets shortlisted for the Indiana Author Awards:
www.wfyi.org/programs/all-in/radio/The-Shortlist-The-Best-of-2020-Indiana-Poetry
​
Let Me Count the Ways: Writing the List Poem
Taught by Shari Wagner
Sponsored by: The Lafayette Writers' Studio
Saturday, February 6, 10:00-12:30
$59

There’s something universally appealing about the list poem, a form going back to Homer, the Old Testament, and Native American prayers. During this class, we’ll look at list poems by contemporary poets, create a collaborative list poem, and engage in writing activities designed to generate our own inventories of images and then transform them into the early drafts of poems.
Visit
Lafayette Writers' Studio for more information and to register.
PicturePhoto of Mounds SP by Shari Wagner
                 Poetry Workshops
             At Mounds State Park 
                    Anderson, Indiana
                              
This year through the Arts in the Parks and Historic Places program, I offered two poetry writing workshops at Mounds State Park.  Each event included a hike with a site naturalist, a discussion of prompts and models, and collaborative and individual writing exercises.  Visit my Poets in the Parks Page to read poems 
from these workshops.                                                                                                

Saturday, August 29, 9:30 AM-2:30 PM     

Exploring the History of Mounds State Park:
A Poetry Workshop for Adults and High School Students 

Saturday, November 14, 9:30 AM-2:30 PM
Exploring the Eco-System at Mounds State Park:
A Poetry Workshop for Adults and HS Students
                                                                     
Visit my ARTS IN THE PARKS page to read collaborative and individual poems from these workshops, as well as my previous workshops at Limberlost State Historic Site and the Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site.      
​
 




New Anthology by Indiana University Press!
I'm excited to have two poems in An Indiana Christmas, edited by Bryan Furuness.
Here's a link to more information about the book and how to order it:
​An Indiana Christmas     
                                
         
"You will find the spirit of Christmas in frozen fields, candle-lit faces, and wood-burning stoves; it's there on chicken farms, in barns where suspended dust looks holy, and in songs echoing alleluias. The spirit sits before us at extended dining room tables snug with family, friends, casseroles, crockpots, and plates stamped with holly. In these stories, essays, and poems, some of our best Indiana authors gift us with writing that glimmers, shining a light on who we were and who we are. An Indiana Christmas is a curl-up book you'll savor year after year."
~Margaret McMullan, author of Where the Angels Lived

​
PictureHomeschooled students creating poems at one of my Limberlost workshops

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Poetry Workshop at the Limberlost
PicturePhoto by Shari Wagner
​​                                                                    "Poetry Features" Page

                           Click on "Poetry Features" to read poems and interviews with  many Indiana
                           
poets. Here's a list of all the poets in the order that their features appear:
                           2017                                                                             2016
                           Ross Gay                                                                     Mitchell L. H. Douglas
                           Lee Harlin Bahan                                                   Maura Stanton
                           Marianne Boruch                                                  Linda Neal Reising
                           Doris Lynch                                                               Kyle Craig
                           Orlando Ricardo Menes                                   Edward Byrne
                           Nancy Chen Long                                                  Arts in the Parks Poets 2016:                                                                 Dan Carpenter                                                       Vienna Bottomley, Joyce Brinkman, 
                                                                                                                    Helen Frost                                                               Liza Hyatt, and Kevin McKelvey
                                                                                                                    Adrian Matejka                                                      Jessica D. Thompson
                                                                                                                    Elizabeth Weber                                                    Poets in the Prairie Writers Guild
                                                                                                                    Marc Hudson                                                           David Shumate
                                                                                                                    Stephen R. Roberts                                              Thomas Alan Orr
                                                                                                                                                                                                              Nancy Pulley​

​                                                "Your Poems" Page
​
Visit "Your Poems" to read submissions written in response to monthly prompts I gave during 2016-2017.  You will find poems and photographs celebrating Indiana places, people, animals, plants, and history. Many thanks to all the Hoosier poets who
contributed to this feature!  

​

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The Lerner Theatre, Elkhart / Shari Wagner
INDIANA POETRY RESOURCES
This is a compilation in progress! Contact me if you have a non-profit poetry resource to suggest.
​
Statewide Resources and Organizations:
​Indiana Arts Commission
Indiana Authors Award
Indiana Humanities
Indiana State Library,  Center for the Book
Indiana Writers Center

Poetry Out Loud
Poetry Society of Indiana, Indiana Federation of Poetry Clubs

Regional Resources:
Northwest Indiana
Indiana Writers' Consortium
Prairie Writers Guild
Write-On, Hoosiers, Inc.
Michiana
Lit Literary Collective
Northeast Indiana
Fort Wayne Writers Guild
Central Indiana
Arts Council of Indianapolis
Big Car Collaborative
Bookmamas Bookstore

Brick Street Poetry Inc.
Indy Literary Arts

Indy Reads Books
Indiana Writer Center
Midwest Writers Workshop
Southern Indiana
Shelby County Writers Group
​Writers Guild at Bloomington
Southeastern Indiana
Village Lights Bookstore
WordWrites Guild

Indiana Poet Laureate Resources

Karen Kovacik, PL 2012-2013 
No More Corn:  Indiana's Laureate on Hoosier Poets
George Kalamaras, PL 2014-2015 
The Wabash Watershed: Where the Rivers of Tradition Meet
     the Rivers of Innovation

Shari Wagner, PL 2016-2017 
Through the Sycamores: Exploring the Hoosier Landscape
     with Indiana's Poet Laureate (You're here!)

Indiana Poet Laureates since 2010:
Poem-a-day in April, Indiana Humanities Archives
​
Open Mics
Elkhart 

Word Play Open Mic
Indianapolis
Evening with the Muse, featured reader and open mic
Kafe Kuumba -Harrison Brook Center
Spoken Word Workshop & Open Mic

Zionsville

Poetry on Brick Street, featured reader and open mic

Free Arts or Literary E-Newsletters
Arts Eye, Indiana Arts Commission
Indy Arts E-News, Arts Council of Indianapolis
Indiana Writers Center E-Blast

University Resources
Ball State University Visiting Writers Series
Indiana University Writers Conference
Indiana University Creative Writing Events
Indiana University East Room 912 Workshops
Kellogg Writers Series, University of Indianapolis
Kelly Writers Series, Depauw University
Purdue University Literary Reading Series
Rufus & Louise Reiberg Series at IUPUI
University of Notre Dame Creative Writing Events

Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series, Butler University
Valparaiso Reading Series

Literary Magazines
Booth: A Journal
Flying Island
Indiana Review
The Indianapolis Review
Notre Dame Review
So It Goes: Literary Magazine of the Vonnegut Memorial Library
Sycamore Review
Southern Indiana Review
Tipton Poetry Journal
Twyckenham Notes

Valparaiso Poetry Review

Artist Retreats, Residencies, Grants and Fellowships
Artist in Residence Program, T.C. Steele Historic Site
Arts in the Parks and Historic Sites Grants, IAC
​Creative Renewal Fellowships, Arts Council of Indianapolis
Individual Artist Grants, IAC

​Mary Anderson Center

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Indiana State Library, Photo by Shari Wagner
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2017 Poetry Out Loud H.S. Competition
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Anthology of Indiana Writers
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Indiana State Library
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Indiana State Library
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Anthology of Indiana Poets
                                               "Hoosier Quilt"

In honor of its 50th Anniversary, the Indiana Arts Commission asked me to write a poem celebrating the arts in Indiana, a piece that became a part of this beautifully photographed video. Grace Milligan, State Champion for Poetry Out Loud (2016), reads my poem. Original music was composed by Timothy Carlos. Think Ahead Studios in Indianapolis produced the video.
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