Beverly Matherne
U.P. Poet Laureate 2023-25
Beverly Matherne is professor emerita of English at Northern Michigan University, where she served as director of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing and poetry editor of Passages North literary magazine. The author of seven books of poetry, she lives in Ishpeming, far from Grand Point, her birthplace on the Mississippi near New Orleans. She is inspired by both the wealth of her Cajun and Creole heritage and the natural and cultural bounty of the Upper Peninsula. The recipient of seven first-place prizes, including the Hackney Literary Award for Poetry, she has done more than 350 poetry readings across the United States, Canada, and France, and in Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Wales. She holds a Ph.D. in Drama from Saint Louis University and M.A. and B.A. degrees in English from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. After receiving her doctorate, she did extensive work in French at the University of California, at Berkeley.
As part of her duties as 2023-2025 U.P. Poet Laureate, Matherne will implement her U.P. Poet Laureate project, which will include visits to high school and middle school classrooms throughout the Upper Peninsula, promoting the art of poetry through interactive lessons and writing activities. Matherne is available for readings and workshops at art centers and libraries. Any school, library, or arts organization wishing to schedule an in-person or virtual reading or classroom visit with Matherne can do so by sending a message to the U.P. Poet Laureate Foundation here.
Learn about Beverly’s new book, Love Potions, Teas, Incantations at Harvard Square Press.
M. Bartley Seigel
U.P. Poet Laureate 2021-22
M. Bartley Seigel (he/his) lives in Houghton, in the Keweenaw Peninsula, in Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula, in Ojibwe homelands and Treaty of 1842 territory, on the shores of Lake Superior. He received his MFA from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and a BA in Journalism from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is the author of This Is What They Say (Typecast Publishing, 2013) and his poetry has regularly appeared in journals such as POETRY Magazine, About Place, Fourth River, Michigan Quarterly Review, Split Rock Review, Thrush, and numerous others, as well as anthologized in And Here: 100 years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press), and Rewilding: Poems for the Environment (Flexible Press). Seigel is founding editor-in-chief of the new poetry letterpress, Simple Machines Magazine, and founding editor emeritus of PANK Magazine, which he co-edited with Roxane Gay from 2006-2015. He is Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Writing Center Director in the Department of Humanities at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. In 2021, he received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.
POEMS BY M. BARTLEY SEIGEL
Marty Al
U.P. Poet Laureate 2017-18, 2019-20
Two-time U.P. Poet Laureate Marty Achatz has been a Contingent Professor in the English Department at Northern Michigan University for close to 30 years. Prior to that, he taught at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. He grew up in Ishpeming and got his Master’s Degree in Fiction and MFA in Poetry from Norther Michigan University. Marty’s most recent publications include poems in The Other Journal and Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice. Marty appears regularly on the radio variety show The Red Jacket Jamboree, and his most recent writing can be found on his blog, Saint Marty, which receives close to 10,000 page views monthly. In his spare time, Marty enjoys hunting for Bigfoot with his son in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
POEMS BY MARTY ACHATZ
Andrea Scarpino
U.P. Poet Laureate 2015-16
Andrea Scarpino (she/her) is a writer, teacher, editor, disability activist, foodie, yoga student, wellness enthusiast, middle grade reader, kitty foster mom, and Women’s World Cup fanatic (among other things!). She is the author of four poetry collections: Once Upon Wing Lake (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle Press, 2017); What the Willow Said as it Fell (Red Hen Press, 2016); Once, Then (Red Hen Press, 2014); and the chapbook The Grove Behind (Finishing Line Press, 2009). She co-edited with Ron Riekki the anthology Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (MSU Press, 2019) and is co-editor of Nine Mile Magazine. Andrea earned her PhD in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and was the 2015-2017 Poet Laureate of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
POEMS BY ANDREA SCARPINO
Russell Thorburn
U.P. Poet Laureate 2013-14
Russell Thorburn was the first U.P. Poet Laureate. The Marquette resident and Northern Michigan University professor has also been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and is the author of several books of prose and poetry. His newest poetry collection is called Somewhere We’ll Leave the World (Wayne State University Press, 2017).
POEMS BY RUSSELL THORBURN