Margaret Rozga and Joseph Heithaus
Saturday, March 14, 2015 (2pm)
In conjunction with exhibition Convergence: The Poetic Dialogue Project UIMA will present poetry reading by poets Margaret Rozga and Joseph Heithaus.
Joseph Heithaus won the 2007 “Discovery”/The Nation Prize for a group of sonnets about poison plants that are now the central thread of his first book, Poison Sonnets(David Robert Books 2012). His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Southwest Review, Poetry, The Atlanta Review, The North American Review, The Southern Review, and Prairie Schooner. His poem “Indiana Flight” is etched in one of the stained glass murals of British artist Martin Donlin in the Indianapolis International Airport. In collaboration with the other poets whose work appears in the airport, he’s published the Rivers, Rails, and Runways and Airmail (San Francisco Bay Press 2008 and 2011). He earned his B.A. at SUNY Albany and his M.F.A. and a Ph.D. from Indiana University. He’s taught at DePauw University for over 15 years, served for a time as chair of English, and lives in Greencastle, Indiana where he and his wife are raising their four children. Among his more unique pieces of public art is his poem “What Grows Here” which can be found painted on the Evans barn just outside of Greencastle.
Margaret Rozga, poet, playwright and professor emerita of English at UW Waukesha, Margaret Rozga has published two books: Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad. Her new book manuscript , Justice Freedom Herbs, focuses on social justice issues in terms of garden imagery. She served as managing editor for the 2013 chapbook anthology TURN UP THE VOLUME: Poems About the States of Wisconsin, a project to raise money for the First Amendment Protection Fund.
Her poems have appeared recently in literary journals including Stoneboat, The Avocet, The Kerf, New Verse News, Nimrod and as a Split This Rock Poem of the Week. Her essay “Community Inclusive: A Poetics to Move Us Forward” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been awarded a 2014 Creative and Performing Artists and Writers Fellowship by the American Antiquarian Society.
Her work has been included in six collaborative projects with visual artists. She is president of the Women’s Caucus of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and program chair for the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. A reviewer of poetry books for Gently Read Literature and Verse Wisconsin, she lives in Milwaukee and offers poetry workshops at various venues in Wisconsin.
Featured image: Cynthia Weiss/Margaret Rozga, Risk Awe, 2014 (detail)