Who is Joyce Sutphen

Joyce Sutphen (born August 10, 1949) is an American poet who served as Minnesota's Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2021. She was the state's second laureate, appointed by Governor Mark Dayton in August, 2011 to succeed Robert Bly. Sutphen is professor emerita of English at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.

Life

Sutphen was raised in Saint Joseph, Minnesota, and currently resides in the city of Chaska. She holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, including her Ph.D. in Renaissance Drama.

Her first book of poetry, Straight Out of View (Beacon Press, 1995), won the Barnard New Women's Poets Prize. Her second, Coming Back to the Body (Holy Cow! Press, 2000), was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and her third, Naming the Stars (2004), a...
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Joyce Sutphen Poems

  • Crossroads
    The second half of my life will be black
    to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
    The second half of my life will be water
    over the cracked floor of these desert years. ...
  • The Farm
    My father's farm is an apple blossomer.
    He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet
    and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose
    and the jack-in-the-pulpits. ...
  • Evening Angelus
    I have forgotten the words,
    and therefore I shall not conceive
    of a mysterious salvation, I shall
    not become a tall lily and bloom ...
  • Just For The Record
    It wasn't like that. Don't imagine
    my father in a feed cap, chewing
    a stem of alfalfa, spitting occasionally.
    ...
  • The Aunts
    I like it when they get together
    and talk in voices that sound
    like apple trees and grape vines,
    ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Joyce Sutphen

Together 7 Time 6 Away 6 White 5 Place 4 Never 4 Beneath 3 Thought 3 Door 3 Heart 3


Joyce Sutphen Quotes

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Comments about Joyce Sutphen

Arjanda: hanging up by joyce sutphen in fourteen sonnets
Visiblegoldrn: i will toss my string of keys into a deep well and old letters into the grate. the second half of my life will be ice breaking up on the river, rain soaking the fields, a hand held out, a fire, and smoke going upward, always up." joyce sutphen - crossroads. 5/5
Missconstrude: you need to be breathing in order to eat paella and drink sangria, and making love is quite impossible without a body, unless you are one of those, given – like gold – to spin in airy thinness forever. “the idea of living” by joyce sutphen from modern love & other myths.
Missconstrude: his breath comes out in clouds, his fingers begin to ache, but he skims off another layer where the frost is forming and begins to sing, "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine." "silo solo" by joyce sutphen, from first words
Zaharaesque: "the second half of my life will be black to the white rind of the old and fading moon. the second half of my life will be water over the cracked floor of these desert years." joyce sutphen, crossroads
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Poem of the day

Isaac Watts Poem
Psalm 119 Part 10
 by Isaac Watts

Pleading the promises.

ver. 38,49

Behold thy waiting servant, Lord,
Devoted to thy fear;
Remember and confirm thy word,
For all my hopes are there.
...

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