Poets on the Plains Season Two

Hi, This is Janice Northerns, coming to you from Wichita, Kansas, for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’ll be sharing a poem by a writer whose work I’ve long admired, Steve Brisendine. Steve lives in Mission, Kansas, but he grew up in Liberal, where I spent a quarter of a century. We both worked for the local newspaper there, though not at the same time..

Welcome to Poets on the Plains. I'm Allison Hedge Coke, a poet writer born in the Texas Panhandle coming to you via cell phone from Nikšić, Montenegro. My latest book is Look at This Blue. I'm also the author of Streaming, Burn -- written during the fires at Marfa -- Blood Run, Off-season City Pipe and some other books.

Hi, I’m Benjamin Myers for “Poets on the Plains.” Today I’m going to share with you one of my own poems. I’ve been writing poetry since I was in middle school, but it was a couple of summers during high school spent at the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain that confirmed my dedication to the art of poetry and set me on the certain path to the writing life.

Hello, I’m Juan J. Morales, an assistant professor of English at Colorado College and a poet that lives in Pueblo, Colorado, here for Poets on the Plains. Today I am sharing my poem, “Visiting Your Grave,” from my latest collection, Dream of the Bird Tattoo, which was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2025.

My name is Jewel Rodgers and I am your state Poet of Nebraska and I am going to read my poem Bloom for you. I wrote this poem with the intention of keeping it grounded in very concrete items—hibiscus, rose, agave, domino tables, spades, soup kitchens, city halls. I wanted it to move from the intimacy of tending to oneself to tending to an entire community.

Hi, I’m Janice Northerns, coming to you from Wichita, Kansas, for Poets on the Plains. I am honored to share one of my own poems with you today: Pilgrimage with Grandchildren, which was published in 2023 in KANSAS!, (that’s Kansas with an exclamation mark), our state’s gorgeous travel magazine.