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.