April is National Poetry Month and today we are interviewing former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Max Garland. Max Garland’s newest book of poems is Into the Good World Again (2023). Other books include The Word We Used for It, winner of the Brittingham Poetry Prize, The Postal Confessions, winner of the Juniper Prize, and Hunger Wide as Heaven, winner of the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. He has received an NEA Poetry Fellowship, Michener Fiction fellowship, Bush Artist Fellowship, inclusion in Best American Short Stories, as well as fellowships in poetry and fiction from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
Born and raised in Kentucky, where he worked for many years as a rural letter carrier on the route where he was born, Max is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, has taught writing at UW-Madison, is Professor Emeritus at UW-Eau Claire, and the former Writer-in-Residence for the City of Eau Claire.