
Jude Genereaux will be the featured poet in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s Dickinson Poetry Series on June 11 at 7:00 pm.
Born and raised in Detroit, Genereaux became an adult (more or less) in Wisconsin. After earning her B.S. in political science and secondary education at Western Michigan University, she moved with her husband to the north woods, where they raised two stellar sons, several dogs, a few cats and a number of rabbits.
Entering the work force at 16 brought a wealth of resources to her life, from retail sales, bookkeeping, waitress and bartending, teaching, director of a day care center, legal secretary and summer clerk at scout camp. But Genereaux major working life was dedicated to county government. She was elected nine times as Barron County Clerk from 1981-1997, and served as Door County’s first County Administrator from 1999-2006.
Genereaux is a writer and a poet focused on love and life with “the man”, family and friends and a belief that Wisconsin is a treasure. To those who flinch at the word “poetry”, she notes “The words to all the music you hear, every wedding or funeral service you attend, and nearly every meaningful passage in life – is poetry”. We write because we can’t stop ourselves; and as my “better half” would have told you: ‘Someone out there may be desperately seeking to hear what you have to say.’ I no longer flinch when I say I’m a poet (he taught me that, too)”.
Genereaux’s work has been published by “Cross+Roads Press”, “Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters”, “Hummingbird,” a goodly number of small press and newspapers; she writes a column for the Rice Lake Chronotype and has two chapbooks of personal essay & poetry, “Base Camp” and “More Than One Door”.
Home is Long Lake and Ellison Bay.