On Sunday, April 6 at 1:30 p.m. in Central Library's Centennial Hall, native Milwaukeean Susan Firer will be inducted as the city's Poet Laureate for 2008-09. Firer will read from her latest poetry collection, Milwaukee Does Strange Things to People, which includes new and selected poems from 1979 to 2007. Her other collections include The Laugh We Make When We Fall (2002), The Underground Communion Rail (1992), My Life With the Tsar and Other Poems (1979), and The Lives of Saints and Everything (1993), which won that year's Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize. Firer is an assistant professor in the English Department of UWM, where she teaches courses in creative writing and women's studies.
Comments (2)
Greetings Susan:
My son and I met you at a Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon several years ago. Congratulations on being the Poet Laureate of Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Does Strange Things to People is a very interesting book. I read it as I wait for my son, Jonathan Clarence Parrish Spence, a senior at Wauwatosa West High School, to get out of school in the afternoons. I grew up in Milwaukee so I can relate to your words in the book. Jonathan, like his late grandfather (Circuit Court Judge Clarence Parrish) and his father, (Joseph S. Spence Sr.) he is an excellent speaker, poet, writer and actor. He just won 1st place at state at the Wisconsin Forensic Coaches Association tournament. He is on his way to two forensics nationals. Hopefully we shall see you one day and converse with you personally about your writings. UWM Trio is one of the programs that assisted him with his creativity. Congratulations again.
Sheila M. Parrish-Spence, Esq., Wauwatosa, WI
Posted by Attorney Sheila M. Parrish-Spence | May 12, 2009 10:38 AM
Posted on May 12, 2009 10:38
Dear Sheilah Parrish- Spence,
Good to hear from you and thanks for the congratulations and your kind comments about my most recent book.
Please congratulate Jonathan on his recent success, and tell him I wish him many more.
I'm sure we will meet again some day.
Wishing you both the best,
Susan
Posted by Susan Firer | May 13, 2009 1:48 PM
Posted on May 13, 2009 13:48