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Local literary non-profit Wolverine Farm Publishing announces the new Poet Laureates of Fort Collins
On December 16th, 2011, Wolverine Farm Publishing announced the winner of their search for the 1st Poet Laureate of Fort Collins—the contest ended in a tie between Matthew Sage and Michael Bussmann, both of Fort Collins.
Wolverine Farm Publishing solicited nominations from the public for this position. Five poets were nominated: Bill Tremblay, Dona Stein, JA Tyler, Matthew Sage, and Michael Bussmann. The public voted via physical ballots at Matter Bookstore, and online at Matter Bookstore’s Facebook page. At the end of the voting period both Matthew Sage and Michael Bussmann received 318 votes each, with nearly a 1,000 votes being cast overall. Both nominees agreed that sharing the unprecedented Fort Collins position would be a good thing for local poetry and literature, and have begun planning writing workshops for local high school students, readings, and a host of other events to bring more attention to poetry.
Fort Collins's poet laureate program celebrates the vibrant literary community we have. With rich traditions in poetry of the people and land as well as in scholarship and publishing, the Fort Collins Poet Laureates put a public face on an often private art. At its worst poetry might fail to engage a reader, at its best it can change a person's life.
A detailed schedule of events, activities, and publications will be available soon. If you have any questions please email Todd Simmons at
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Poet Laureate Bios
Matthew Sage was born and raised in Fort Collins. The first time he set foot on a sailboat he was four months old. He studied poetry and aesthetics at Colorado State University. He runs a cassette-tape label, Patient Sounds, which has released 13 tapes, 3 online compilations and 2 collections of poetry. He enjoys skateboarding, long drives, loud music and his dog, a brilliant border-collie-mutt who smiles.
Email:
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Michael Bussmann is a poet and essayist living in the northern (and sort of eastern) part of Colorado. He received his B.A. in English from Regis University in 2000 and since then has been a little hard to pin down. He moves around a lot, but at the moment he makes a living telling stories about beer for New Belgium Brewing Company. He is married to a wonderful (and very understanding) woman of Irish descent named Megan, and has a young daughter named Ellie Mae. Not known for his fashion sense or athleticism, Michael enjoys thinking that he is good at other things, like reading, writing and left turns on a bicycle. Michael’s work has been seen in a few publications, websites and journals (all of the entertaining variety), most recently Matter Journal Issue 14: Animal, in which he tells a long and involved story about mice and people and old houses and the relationships between the three.
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Links:
Fort Collins 2012 Poet Laureate(s) Blog
Coloradoan article about the Poet Laureates
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