An accomplished group of young poets from Gibraltar High School are featured at the Dickinson Series reading on February 8 at 7 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Now in its third year, Youth Poetry Night has become an annual tradition for the UU poetry series.

This fine group of poets was identified and prepared by Lauren Bremer, an English teacher at the school:

Brandon Bogenschütz
Gibraltar senior and Egg Harbor resident Brandon Bogenschütz finds passion in the many forms of art. He has taken advantage of any opportunity to act in the wonderful theater program at Gibraltar High School, taking part in One Act, Forensics, and the High School play/musical, for all four years of high school. In addition to theater, he enjoys music and writing, which he not only does through show choir (Vocalocity) and newspaper (The Viking Voice), but with his several musical groups and by himself in his free time. Poetry takes up much of this free time because Brandon finds peace in its rhythmic flow of language which provides imagery and insight that can captivate and inspire. He intends to attend UW Stevens Point to major in Musical Theater or Acting, depending on the results of his upcoming auditions for each. He states, “If a career in the arts doesn’t culminate, there is always the fallback of starting a coffee/sandwich shop with karaoke nights Thursdays and Saturdays at 7, in Seattle, WA.”

Hope Bogenschutz
Hope Bogenschutz is a senior at Gibraltar High School. She comes from a loving family who inspire her beyond belief. She lives in Egg Harbor where she likes to read and play with her dog, Cooper. Hope thanks all of her teachers for their support and efforts in helping her succeed.

Katelaine Buske
Katelaine (Katie) Buske is a senior this year at Gibraltar. She enjoys writing lyrical poetry that could be put to song. This year, Katie is performing in Door County Idol as a competitor and also is Assistant Directing for the school musical. Past accomplishments include a trip for her Seussical cast to the One Act State competition, Forensics, a role as Yente in Fiddler on the Roof, and many writing accomplishments such as writing articles for the Fish Creek Noble House and the Viking Voice as their Web Editor.

Anya Kopischke
Anya Kopischke was born a melancholic. She says that growing up in a Waldorf school awakened a deep passion for poetry within her. Now a junior at Gibraltar HS, Anya is a busy girl: dividing her time between theatre, music, art, and writing. In her free time, Anya enjoys pondering the mysteries of the universe and having a good laugh with some friends.

Alicia Mickelson
Alicia Mickelson lives in Sister Bay, Wisconsin, and is a junior at Gibraltar High School. She has enjoyed writing poetry since her first memorable experiences with it in fourth grade. She writes about anything that sparks her imagination, though mostly about her life experiences. When not writing poetry, she enjoys reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, drawing, wasting time on the internet, and spending time with her friends and wonderful mother.

Taylor Syers
Taylor Syers is currently a senior at Gibraltar High School and was born in Barrington, Illinois. She moved to Door County upon her grandfather’s death in 2001. In her spare time she enjoys exploring the nature around her. She also enjoys writing poetry. Her influence in her writing is often times nature and natural human emotions. In the fall, Taylor will be attending either UW Stevens Point or UW Eau Claire to pursue a Broad Field Social Studies major.

Jasper Whalen
Jasper Whalen is a man of few but remarkable words. He has as much talent for mathematics as for making people laugh; that is to say that he is fond of both. He is a native of Sturgeon Bay and enjoys the small joys of life, such as birds and chocolate.

Leah Zielke
No bio available.

The Dickinson Poetry Series is presented by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Door County on the second Wednesday of every month. A reception follows the readings affording an opportunity to meet the poets. The public is welcome and there is no charge. The UUFDC is located at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. For more information, call (920) 854-7559.

David Clowers

The next Dickinson Poetry Series will feature UU Member David Clowers in “Out of the Woods and Into a Poem” January 11, 7 pm, at the UU Fellowship.

For nine years, David lived in a small, self-built cabin on thirty acres of Door County woods without the advantages of electricity or running water. He notes that was over three times as long as Henry David Thoreau managed to do it, and Thoreau could walk over to fellow poet Ralph Waldo Emerson’s for dinner! David has since moved into a condo on the shores of Sturgeon Bay, but living in the woods taught him simplicity, and living without electronic distractions gave him a great deal of time to write.

He received his Masters degree in English literature, but after three years teaching English and American literature at Drake University, he switched fields, and got his law degree from the University of Chicago. He has practiced law ever since, and currently does the Legal Aid Clinic for Door County. He also instructs poetry and reading theater classes for the Door County Learning in Retirement program.

David tries to write every day, and since he began writing seriously about 10 years ago, his poems have garnered honorable mentions and a second place in the annual Hal Grutzmacher contests, an honorable mention in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Triad contest, and appeared in the 2009, 2010 and 2012 WFOP calendars. He was profiled in the Peninsula Pulse and one of his poems was featured on the Your Daily Poem website.  Several of his poems also have been posted on the poetry trail in Newport State Park. David’s first book of poetry, Shedding My Three Piece Birthday Suit, was published by Birchwinds Press, Egg Harbor in 2011.

An open mic will follow David’s reading.

Marybeth Mattson

Growing up with a family full of musicians and artists, Marybeth Mattson fell to poetry as a way to set herself apart. A graduate of UW Green Bay, she majored in creative writing, dabbled in fiction, but always returned to poetry as a second home of sorts. It was at college that she became enamored with slam poetry and spoken word, following recordings and You Tube videos of Taylor Mali, Rives, and Saul Williams, whose poems leapt from paper and became living, breathing things through the nuances of cadence, inflection, pitch and volume.

While at UWGB Marybeth served as Poetry Editor for the Sheepshead Review journal of the arts for two semesters, engaging her classmates in lively discussions resulting in the acceptance or rejection of students’ poems for publication. This experience taught her to appreciate the purpose of poetry as much as the art of it. The purpose of poetry, she believes, is mysterious and obvious all at once. A poem may be meant to instigate conversation, to bring forth truth in new light, to bring about change, or maybe just to give the poet an excuse to yell or curse. Perhaps a poem is only meant to give the poet an outlet for pain or joy, or to share it with others. Marybeth prefers to hear what others believe the purpose of her poetry is.

Marybeth was also influence greatly by her poetry instructor at UWGB, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Denise Sweet. From Sweet she gleaned insight on reading and reciting for impact and emphasis, and learned that sometimes a poem is never finished. “She showed us the world in a wooden bowl, and gave us five minutes to capture it. That kind of exercise,” she says, “ taught me to reserve judgment on my own work, as well as others.”

In 1987, an insightful and strange four year old Marybeth told her mother, “when you dream, your reflection goes out of you into your dream,” a sentiment not lost to her today.  “If we cast our reflections into our art, our poetry,” she says, “we can better see ourselves through the impact we are able to have on each other.”

Though she has written enough poetry to fill several chapbooks, she has yet to publish one. “Some poetry,” she says, “is meant for the eye, and some for the ear – my poetry is for the ear.” To that end, she has recorded several of her own pieces, and intends to release a ‘chapdisc’ instead.

Marybeth’s reading will include new and not-so-new poetry and perform spoken word pieces, as well as an original song or two to bridge the gap between lyrics and poetry, at the UU of Door County at 7pm on Wednesday, Dec. 14^th, 2011. Open mic participants are encouraged by Marybeth to take a crack at Slam style poetry – reading is still acceptable, just give it some attitude! For more information and to listen to recorded songs and poems visit www.facebook.com/MarybethMusic.

Henry Timm

Door County poet, playwright and director Henry Timm will read his poetry at the UU Fellowship’s Dickinson Poetry Series November 9^th, 7 pm.

Timm has written in many poetic forms though he has probably been most influenced by his experience reading and acting Shakespeare and Ibsen.  As a result these days he writes plays, narratives, meditations, character sketches, as well as soliloquies and other rhymed poems.  If asked about the function of poetry, he would most likely read a recent poem which describes the process of the (so-called) primitive artists of cave wall paintings signing their work with hand prints of one kind or another.  The poem concludes: “The message left is simple: ‘I was here, / I did this; now you know of me and mine.’ / That is the urgent fact of every poem / writ then and now and all our days to come.”

Timm has had a life-long fascination with the written word. He wrote drama criticism and edited a college literary magazine and studied Ibsen at the University of Oslo in Norway. Play writing followed, earning him a fellowship to Brandeis University.

He stayed on in Boston where he became a founding producer of the New England Playwright’s Guild.  Upon returning to Wisconsin he founded the Midwest Institute for Theater Arts (with its performing arm, Dancing Moon Theater).  Through the N. E. Playwright’s Guild, Dancing Moon Theater, Teatro Caravaggio and other producing organizations, his plays have seen production in New England, New York City and State, the Midwest and elsewhere.

Most recently, he, Nancy Rafal and Garrett Cohn joined forces to publish N.E.W. Voices, under the not-for-profit rubric of Caravaggio Press.  N.E.W. Voices is a literary magazine providing a platform for regional writers. The first issue celebrates the contribution of Barbara Larsen to the poetic life of Door County.

The monthly Dickinson Poetry Series provides a forum for poets to read their works followed by an open mic for others to share their poetry. A reception follows. The Series is free and the public is welcome to attend and participate.

The UU Fellowship is located at 10341 Hwy. 42, (Water Street), Ephraim. For more information visit www.uufdc.org or phone (920) 854-7559.

Bruce Dethlefsen

Bruce Dethlefsen, the 2011-2012 Wisconsin Poet Laureate, will give two readings in Door County in October. Hosted by the UU Fellowship Dickinson Poetry Series and by the Friends of the Door County Libraries, Dethlefsen will read at the Fellowship at 7 pm on October 19 and at the Miller Art Museum in the Sturgeon Bay Library at 7 pm on October 20. An open mic will follow the UUF reading while on Thursday evening the presentation will include readings by gifted high school students. That reading also commemorates National Library Week.

Dethlefsen is nationally renowned. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on NPR and Wisconsin Public Radio and also on the website, Your Daily Poem.  His full-length book, Breather, published by Fireweed Press, won an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association and received an Honorable Mention in the Posner Awards. He has published two chapbooks.

Dethlefsen performed in Door County earlier this year as a featured musician in the group, “Obvious Dog,” accompanying the poetry of Cathryn Cofell at the May Dickinson Poetry Series reading.

Dethlefsen is a retired educator and public library director. He resides in Westfield, Wisconsin.

Edward DiMaio

A multi-media show by Edward DiMaio will be featured at the monthly Dickinson Poetry Series Wednesday, September 14 at 7:00 pm.

It was during his high school years that DiMaio started keeping a journal and rekindled his relationship with film and video through the A/V department. By his mid twenties Edward’s journal entries had taken on a poetic character.

After moving to the Midwest from his native New York City, DiMaio started compiling his poems into a book and turned his lens to modern dance. Edward’s dance photography has been published in several international dance journals and his chapbook Sound Scent & Light, published in 2002. After his divorce in 2000 and an extended visit to Europe, DiMaio choose to relocate in Door County and has never looked back. Since in Door County, DiMaio has been published in the Pulse and online through the Door County Compass. DiMaio is currently working on a new book of poems Eating Hungry Food:  Post WWII Corporate America. He was a member of a UU church in Lafayette, Indiana.

DiMaio opened a YouTube account in 2007 and some of his videos related to drum building have had nearly 20,000 views. He merges his passion for both words and images into “Improv Video Poems”. Captivated by a sight or feeling, he turns on his video camera and starts saying whatever he is inspired to say while filming his inspiration. These are filmed in a single shot with no editing. You can learn more about DiMaio’s word and image mash ups at his YouTube site:   http://www.youtube.com/user/ofmay?feature=mhee#p/u.

DiMaio recently began recording, editing and posting  the Dickinson Poetry Series for the UUFDC.  Visit www.uufdc.org to view the entries.

Judy Roy

Judy Roy of Baileys Harbor will read from her works at the Dickinson Poetry Series August 10, 7 pm, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Ephraim.

A Wisconsin native, Roy retired from careers as a psychologist and then as a French teacher.  She writes her poetry in the boreal forest north of Baileys Harbor.  Her work has been included in the Common Ground Project, Nature of the Door, and Living Up to Memorial Day, a production of the Isadoora Theater Company.  She has read at the Wisconsin Book Festival and other venues throughout the state and beyond its borders.  Judy has studied in numerous workshops with some of the best poets in Wisconsin and at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival.  A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, she has co-authored the chapbooks Slightly Off Q and Two Off Q.

The Dickinson Poetry Series presents the works of a recognized local or regional poet on the second Wednesday of each month. Following the featured poet, others in the audience are invited to read their works. The Series is free, open to the public and provides a welcoming format for poets of all levels.

The UU Fellowship is located at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. For more information call (920) 854-7559.