Wild Muse: Ozark Nature Poetry

Come join us at The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow for a selection of poetry read by the poets of Wild Muse: Ozark Nature Poetry. This free event takes place on November 18th, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at WCDH 515 Spring Street Eureka Springs Arkansas. We are honored to host six of the poets from this collection, Wendy Taylor Carlise, John J. Han, Gerry Sloan, Phillip Howerton, Agnes Vojta, and Amy Wright Vollma.

“Wild Muse” is a collection of contemporary poetry engaging Ozark nature and environment. Some topics and themes explored here are nature’s beauty, sense of place, loss of place, environmental diminishment, and human dependence on nature and its sublime indifference to our existence. Combining the best aspects of chapbooks and anthologies, this “chapthology” features the best aspects of chapbooks and anthologies, this "chapthology" features extensive selections from the work of nine Ozarks poets (C. D. Albin, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Paulette Guerin, John J. Han, Phillip Howerton, Gerry Sloan, Mark Spitzer, Agnes Vojta, and Amy Wright Vollmar) providing readers a generous introduction to the voice, style, and perspectives of each writer.

Wendy Taylor Carlise

Wendy Taylor Carlisle was born in Manhattan, raised in Bermuda, Connecticut and Ft Lauderdale, Florida and lives now in the Arkansas Ozarks in a house she built in 1980. She has an MA from The University of Arkansas and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of The Mercy of Traffic (Unlikely Books, 2019), Discount Fireworks (Jacaranda Press, 2008) and Reading Berryman to the Dog (Jacaranda Press, 2000.) Chapbooks include They Went to the Beach to Play (Locofo Chaps, 2016), Chap Book (Platypus Press, 2016), Persephone on the Metro (MadHat press, 2014), The Storage of Angels (Slow Water Press, 2008), and After Happily Ever After (Two River Chapbooks, 2003.) Her work appears in multiple anthologies.

Agnes Vojta

Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams, all published by Spartan Press.

Gerald H. Sloan

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His poetry collections are Paper Lanterns (2011) and Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (2017) plus six chapbooks including Wild Muse (Cornerpost Press, 2023). Recent work appears in Nebo, Slant, Cantos, Xavier Review, Arkansas Review, Blue Unicorn, Cold Mountain Review, Mid/South Anthology, Rat's Ass Review, Cave Region Review (featured poet), and Elder Mountain (featured poet)

Phillip Howerton

Phillip Howerton holds a PhD in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia and is professor of English at a small Ozarks university. His essays, reviews, and poems have appeared in numerous journals and books. He is a co-founder and poetry editor of Cave Region Review and general editor of Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies. His poetry collection, The History of Tree Roots, was published by Golden Antelope Press in 2015, and his The Literature of the Ozarks: An Anthology was published by University of Arkansas Press in 2019, a project for which he received the 2019 Missouri Literary Award from the Missouri Library Association.

Amy Wright Vollmar

Amy Wright Vollmar was born in southern Illinois and can sing numerous folk songs about frogs, dogs, and mules. Luckily, she also went to Monmouth College to study Yeats and Eliot. Now she lives in Springfield, Missouri, and has learned how to write poetry in a kayak (tip: use a mudproof notebook). Now retired, Amy volunteers with students, writes, and hopes to show people the beautiful fragility of the wild places she loves through poetry.

John J. Han

John J. Han (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is a scholar, poet, editor, and translator. He was born in South Jeolla Province, South Korea, in 1956 and came to America for graduate studies in English in 1988. He currently serves as Professor of English and Creative Writing and Chair of the Humanities Division at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis