This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with poets Corrie Williamson and Joe Wilkins, whose most recent poetry collections were published by River River Books, a poetry press helmed by Han VanderHart and Amorak Huey.
Note: This episode has been edited for time and is dedicated to the late Olive Wilkins, whose life and love for the land populates Joe's poetry, both explicitly and not.
About the books:
The poems in Corrie Williamson's Your Mother’s Bear Gun exist in thresholds, in liminal spaces: emotional and physical landscapes at the blurring of safety and danger, the point where preservation of self becomes harm to others. This collection explores the rugged wildernesses of Oregon, Montana, and Appalachia, inviting the reader to consider what it means to be human in a rough and hungry world. How do we protect ourselves? How do we care for each other? We pay attention, Corrie Williamson suggests. We listen. We let the wild light into our bones.
Joe Wilkins' Pastoral, 1994 calls compellingly into the lyric quietness, labor, and rituals of the rural West and its communities, bringing readers close to the earth, to the ditches, to the "flowery stink of alfalfa / hot breath of wheat." Enfolding its reader in a living, breathing landscape, this collection tenderly approaches the lives—of humans, of sheep, of cottonwood, and barn owl—that collide and entangle with each other. With a gentle yet appraising regard for the richly layered concepts of childhood and masculinity, Pastoral, 1994 leans in and listens to the prairie and those living there.
About Corrie Williamson:
Corrie Williamson was born and raised on a small farm in southwestern Virginia and now makes her home in Montana. She is the author of two previous poetry collections, The River Where You Forgot My Name, selected for the Crab Orchard Series and a finalist for the 2019 Montana Book Award; and Sweet Husk, winner of the 2014 Perugia Press Prize. Her work has appeared recently in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Pleiades, Copper Nickel, Cascadia Field Guide, and many other venues. She was the 2020 Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency fellow, spending 7.5 months living off-grid in southwest Oregon’s Rogue River wilderness.
About Joe Wilkins:
Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon. He is the author of the novels Fall Back Down When I Die (2019) and The Entire Sky (2024), both published by Little, Brown and Company. A finalist for the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Fall Back Down When I Die won the High Plains Book Award. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and The Fathers, and four previous collections of poetry. Wilkins directs the creative writing program at Linfield University and is a member of the low-residency MFA faculty at Eastern Oregon University.
Mentioned in this episode:
The River Where You Forgot My Name by Corrie Williamson (Southern Illinois University Press)
Poet Tom Sleigh on the poetry of Seamus Heaney
Sweet Husk by Corrie Williamson (Perugia Press)
The Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency (both Corrie and Joe were residents!)
Bob Quinn, a farmer from Big Sandy (and co-author, with Liz Carlisle, of Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food, published by Island Press)
Corrie Williamson recommends:
The Cloud Path by Melissa Kwasny (Milkweed Editions); listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Melissa here!
If I Had Said Beauty by Tami Haaland (Lost Horse Press)
The Mouths of Grazing Things by Jennifer Boyden (University of Wisconsin Press)
Living Room by Laura Bylenok (Backwaters Press)
Horsefly Dress by Heather Cahoon (University of Arizona Press); ; listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Heather here!
All This Divide by Jory Mickelson (Spuyten Duyvil); listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Jory here!
The Bear's Mouth by Laura Stott (Lynx House Press)
Joe Wilkins recommends:
Eternal Sentences by Michael McGriff (University of Arkansas Press)
Colorfast by Rose McLarney (Penguin Poets; Penguin Random House)
The Elements of San Joaquin by Gary Soto (Chronicle Books)
The Alphabet Not Unlike the World by Katrina Vandenberg (Milkweed Editions)
The River Where You Forgot My Name by Corrie Williamson (Southern Illinois University Press)
Lives of the Animals by Robert Wrigley (Penguin Poets; Penguin Random House)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Your Mother’s Bear Gun (River River Books) and The River Where You Forgot My Name (Southern Illinois University Press) by Corrie Williamson
Pastoral, 1994 (River River Books), When We Were Birds (University of Arkansas Press), The Mountains and the Fathers: Growing Up on the Big Dry (Counterpoint LLC), and The Entire Sky (Little Brown and Company) by Joe Wilkins; listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Joe here!
out takes/ glove box by Maya Jewell Zeller (New American Press); listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Maya here!
All This Divide by Jory Mickelson (Spuyten Duyvil); listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Jory here!
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen (Ballantine Books); listen to Lauren’s TWQ mini conversation with Toni here!
Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West by Bryce Andrews (Mariner Books); listen to Lauren’s TWQ conversation with Bryce here!
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The Write Question team is Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Fact & Fiction, an independent bookstore located in the heart of downtown Missoula, Montana, providing books for all ages and supporting the literary community in Montana and beyond. More information can be found at factandfictionbooks.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
