Shoshauna Shy

photo by Marty Drapkin

CONTACT

Shoshauna Shy
Madison, Wisconsin

BIO

Shoshauna Shy is a member of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet which includes John Lehman, Richard Roe and Robin Chapman. They are available to perform at museum celebrations, art gallery openings, special events and evening soirées. In May 2004, she founded a program called Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, poetryjumpsofftheshelf.com in which the mission is to place poetry in public places where it is not expected. Please email Shoshauna for more information about this program.

Shoshauna Shy's poems have been published in numerous journals and magazines which include The Seattle Review, Cimarron Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Rattle, Rosebud and Poetry Northwest. Two of her poems were finalists in the Wisconsin Academy Review Poetry Contest in 2004, and one of her poems was selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program launched by Billy Collins. She was the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets' poetry editor for their quarterly newsletter from 2001-2004, served on the judging panel for the annual contest of the Wisconsin Academy Review in 2004, and sponsored a contest in Free Verse in 2005. Her collection titled What the Postcard Didn’t Say won an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association in 2008. Shoshauna works for the Wisconsin Humanities Council and has helped create, coordinate and facilitate poetry programs for the annual Wisconsin Book Festival in downtown Madison each October.

PUBLICATIONS

What the Postcard Didn't Say, full-length collection, Zelda Wilde Publishing, 2007 - $11.95 - Winner of an Outstanding Achievement Poetry Award from the Wisconsin Library Association
White Horses on Sale for a Song, Parallel Press, 2005 - $10.00
Lake Wingra Morning: Poems of the Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood, Woodrow Hall Editions in partnership with the Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood Association, 2003 - $5.00. Edited by Shoshauna Shy - SOLD OUT
Slide Into Light: Poems of the Brighter Moments, Moon Journal Press, 2001 - $8.00
Souped-Up on the Must-Drive Syndrome, Pudding House Publications, 2000 - $8.95

Shoshauna Shy's poems have been anthologized by Random House (Poetry 180), Grayson Books (Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, To Love One Another), Wisconsin Poets' Calendars, Samsara Quarterly, Pudding House Publications (The Pocket Poet Parenting Guide, Hunger Enough), Marion Street Press (Poem, Revised), Midmarch Arts Press (Mirror, Mirror: Reflections on the Way We Look ), Wild Dove Studio & Press (Jane's Stories), Sourcebooks, Inc. (Poetry Daily), Girlchild Press (Just Like a Girl), and Red Hen Press ( Letters to the World).

OTHER POEMS
loc.gov/poetry/180/068.html

poemeleon.org/shoshauna-shy/
madpoetry.org/madpoets/shyshosh.html

BOOKINGS

2009

February
Participant in The Winter Festival of Poets reading on February 1st at 2:00 PM with Catherine Jagoe, Marilyn Annucci, Eve Robillard, Paul Thompson, and Jackie Langetieg at Avol's Bookstore in Madison

March
Participating in a reading at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art March 6th at 6:30 PM in conjunction with an exhibit titled "Something Wicked This Way Comes" in Madison, and featured reader with Ron Czerwien on March 10th at 7:00 PM at the Windhover Center for the Arts in Fond du Lac. Also, on March 12th at 7:00 PM, joining members of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet - Robin Chapman, Richard Roe and John Lehman - in a program titled "Stage Left" to celebrate the launch of John's new book titled "Acting Lessons" at Avols Bookstore in Madison.

April
Participant in The Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet's program "Under the Influence" on April 23rd at 7:00 PM at the Minhaus Craft Brewery sponsored by the Monroe Arts Center in Monroe monroeartscenter.com/poetry.php4

May
Featured reader with Andrea Potos, Katrin Talbot, Angela Rydell and Eve Robillard on May 4th at 6:30PM to celebrate release of new anthology titled: EATING HER WEDDING DRESS: A COLLECTION OF CLOTHING POEMS published by Ragged Sky Press and including poems by Kim Addonizio, Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins and Charles Simic. This anthology includes poems of self-presentation and identity, poems of alteration and transformation, poetry about the woven word, and poems invoking the talismanic quality of clothing. This will take place at A Room of One's Own Bookstore in Madison.

POEM

LOTTERY

When he broke into houses
he never took anything.
What he did was earn the trust
of the cats who preened and strutted,
gave them Whiska Chewies
till they jowl-rubbed his calves,
then helped himself to carrot cake,
mixed an amaretto sour.
Since women postponed motherhood
to pursue full day careers,
he had his pick of the colonials
that bordered Cedar Drive,
noted what hedges hid entryways,
which windows were rigged.
One day numbers would click face up
with his name blazing on the jackpot
and he wouldn't meet the crack of dawn
for the paper route anymore,
aim the bulky bundles
at those polished brassy kickplates.
He was getting too old to park on the street
and sleep inside his car,
eating cafe refuse till the cleaning shift at Jeeve's.
So, it behooved him to scrutinize
which homes sat all day empty,
locate a key on a pantry hook
and get a copy made, memorize
escape routes, leave the kitchen
as he found it, not wear muddy shoes, not take
the last piece of pecan pie.
Be grateful to the velvet cat
whose purrbox kept his secret.

Published by Fox Cry Review

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