Bio:
Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen has six full-length books of poetry, most recently Understory, from Lost Horse Press in 2013. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, Calyx, and the Internet’s Poetry Daily.  She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and the recipient of the 2006 Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts.  She serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford, organizing the January Stafford Birthday Events.


Understory

Here a reader encounters a voice steeped in the music of the English language, a voice intent on the musical possibilities of poetry's open and nonce forms. In these pages, one finds a voice indebted to the power of metaphor-the capacity of metaphor to transform both language itself and the way we humans see this world. Oregon's sixth Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen has five full-length books of poetry, including "The Voluptuary."

"All poets draw on myth. In many of her poems, Paulann Petersen writes myth itself--stories and seeings so true you look again and again and they're truer." -John Daniel, author of "Of Earth"