Sheryl Ann Noethe's Page

I was born and raised in Minnesota where I attended Urban Arts, a high-school alternative program, which allowed me to learn to write poetry. My first collection—The Descent of Heaven Over the Lake (New Rivers Press)—was published in 1984, and was followed by The Ghost Openings (Grace Court Press, 2000), which won a Northwest Publisher's Best Book Award, and, most recently, As Is (Lost Horse Press, 2009; Lost Horse has a nice write up of the book on their website). My poems have appeared in numerous journals and a few anthologies as well. Recognitions have included a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the CutBank Hugo Prize in Poetry, the Emerging Voices Award from New Rivers Press, a McKnight Prize for Literature, an American Academy of Poetry Award, and an honorable mention for the Pushcart Prize.

From Minnesota I moved to New York City and worked with the Teachers & Writers Collaborative, bringing poetry into the classrooms of the South Bronx, Harlem, and East New York. I currently reside in Missoula, Montana, at the foot of Mt. Jumbo with my fearless husband, a firefighter, where we keep a household of rescue animals, including a one-eyed feral cat named Mike Tyson.

As Is (2009) The Ghost Openings (2000)

Mirage from The Ghost Openings The man in the Mexican Restaurant had your build. Your haircut, shoulders, rib cage and behind. You, easy. From the back, in a minute. My body, turncoat, began agitating. Warm, welcoming sensations. Cling peaches in heavy syrup. Entirely consumed by you. Until, as mystery will, he turned his head to reveal a stranger. The wrong man. If only he could have stood still with his back to me forever. Just like you.

In addition to my poetry, I co-authored Poetry Everywhere, a resource for teaching poetry, now in its third printing. And in 1994 I founded the Missoula Writing Collaborative, a program that places writers in public schools, libraries, on the Flathead Reservation, in detention homes with at-risk youth, in Hawai’ian Charter Schools and in an Alaskan village. For this work I was awarded a Cultural Achievement Award from the Missoula Cultural Council in 2004.

In April 2009 I appeared on MTPR's The Write Question, a program that explores the world of writing and publishing in the western United States. Listen here: Please visit my website.