Congratulations to Lowell Jaeger for being named Montana's Poet Laureate
2017 to 2019
www.dailyinterlake.com/article/20170523/ARTICLE/170529955
"After Second Shift" by Lowell Jaeger on The Writer's Almanac
writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170116/0116/
writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170116/0116/
Ice Fishing with Fourth Graders by Lowell Jaeger
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"Opening Ice Fishing with Fourth Graders by Lowell Jaeger, the reader will find poems about the delights and struggles of parenting, grandparenting, proms, heartbreak, accidents, and rekindling romance after the kids are grown and gone. Jaeger's poems illuminate the extraordinary nature of our ordinary daily lives -- a mystical fog-cloud of gnats, the stark beauty of Montana winters and also the pain of them, a wonderful ode to a woodstove, and much more. In “Difficult Wild Terrain” Jaeger writes, 'She and I . . . / in the beauty of hell’s wrath, thunder crack, / and cloud bursting downpour. Each of us sheltered / in loving the other. Alive in the world / we were born to explore.'" -- Lori Desrosiers, Editor of Naugatuk River Review and author of Keeping Planes in the Air
"Lowell Jaeger writes poetry that reflects the best of American values: his work is honest, kind, and inspiring. Reading his poems makes you recall the best parts of childhood, the lessons learned in youth, and the responsibilities we all have as adults to connect with other humans. If poetry is one of the few tools we have to make the world a better place, Jaeger wields it with singular finesse, selflessly sharing insights that you feel deep in your core. When you get to the end of a Lowell Jaeger poem, you invariably go back to the beginning and read it again: even if your heart may be full, your mind is curious to see how he made that happen, how he could—in the space of a few words—make the familiar and the mundane new and wonderfully strange again." -- Aaron Parrett, Executive Director of the Drumlummon Institute
"Opening Ice Fishing with Fourth Graders by Lowell Jaeger, the reader will find poems about the delights and struggles of parenting, grandparenting, proms, heartbreak, accidents, and rekindling romance after the kids are grown and gone. Jaeger's poems illuminate the extraordinary nature of our ordinary daily lives -- a mystical fog-cloud of gnats, the stark beauty of Montana winters and also the pain of them, a wonderful ode to a woodstove, and much more. In “Difficult Wild Terrain” Jaeger writes, 'She and I . . . / in the beauty of hell’s wrath, thunder crack, / and cloud bursting downpour. Each of us sheltered / in loving the other. Alive in the world / we were born to explore.'" -- Lori Desrosiers, Editor of Naugatuk River Review and author of Keeping Planes in the Air
"Lowell Jaeger writes poetry that reflects the best of American values: his work is honest, kind, and inspiring. Reading his poems makes you recall the best parts of childhood, the lessons learned in youth, and the responsibilities we all have as adults to connect with other humans. If poetry is one of the few tools we have to make the world a better place, Jaeger wields it with singular finesse, selflessly sharing insights that you feel deep in your core. When you get to the end of a Lowell Jaeger poem, you invariably go back to the beginning and read it again: even if your heart may be full, your mind is curious to see how he made that happen, how he could—in the space of a few words—make the familiar and the mundane new and wonderfully strange again." -- Aaron Parrett, Executive Director of the Drumlummon Institute
Someday I'd Write This Down by Lowell Jaeger
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"Lowell Jaeger is a rare talent: a writer both accessible and revelatory, humane and incisive. I found this to be a beautiful read, a story about all the different manifestations of love — a story that stays with you. Someday I’d Write This Down charts the ordinary and extraordinary moments of the poet’s life, from a childhood fishing trip to the Cuban Missile Crisis to the death of an aged parent. Jaeger is at his best here — full of emotion and vigor, packed with drama and substance. This author is a joy to read, and I learn how to be more human every time I pick up one of his books."
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Earth-blood & Star-shine by Lowell Jaeger
Lowell Jaeger (Montana Poet Laureate 2017-2019) is founding editor of Many Voices Press and edited New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from eleven western states. Jaeger is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize, and recipient of fel- lowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. Lowell was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting civil civic discourse. He is the author of seven other collections of poems, the most recent of which is Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone (Shabda Press 2016).
Purchase Earth-blood & Star-shine on Amazon
Purchase Earth-blood & Star-shine on Amazon
Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone by Lowell Jaeger
Purchase Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone on Amazon.com
Lowell Jaeger teaches creative writing at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. He is author of six collections of poems: War On War (Utah State University Press, 1988), Hope Against Hope (Utah State University Press 1990), Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press, 2009), WE (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2010), How Quickly What's Passing Goes Past (Grayson Books, 2013) and Driving the Back Road Home (Shabda Press, 2015). He is founding editor of Many Voices Press and recently edited New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from western states. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize, and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. In 2010, Jaeger was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting civil civic discourse.
“The title for Lowell Jaeger’s Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone comes from his poem, “Four Chaplains,” a story of self-sacrifice in a hopeless situation. These poems puzzle over themes of duty and sacrifice within the give and take of ordinary lives. Those who tell the tales are sometimes generous and sometimes not, but they are unwaveringly honest. “Let’s assume there’s a lesson/ in every small thing,” Jaeger writers in “Follow Your Bliss?” This is a book of small things and lessons made eloquent by Jaeger’s formal and lyrical skill. County library book sales, small town restaurants, road trips, and tow trucks all have a place in this volume whose ultimate theme is acceptance, forgiveness, and love.” --Tami Haaland, former Montana Poet Laureate and author of When We Wake in the Night
“Like William Carlos Williams, William Stafford, and Dorianne Laux, Lowell Jaeger is a poet of commonplace things that matter, the rhythms and cast-off minutes that animate our days and lives. Jaeger writes with wit, wonder, and stark, tender honesty. His language is precise but never pretentious, his narratives full, profound, surprising. In the penultimate poem, we are stopped along a “backroad meadow,” where two horses approach, “as if to ask what news [we] might bring.” Well, let me tell you now the news you’ll find herein is full and true; it is “despite our separate hardships” nothing more, and nothing less, than “the goodness of this day.” --Joe Wilkins, author of The Mountain and the Fathers and When We Were Birds
Lowell Jaeger teaches creative writing at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. He is author of six collections of poems: War On War (Utah State University Press, 1988), Hope Against Hope (Utah State University Press 1990), Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press, 2009), WE (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2010), How Quickly What's Passing Goes Past (Grayson Books, 2013) and Driving the Back Road Home (Shabda Press, 2015). He is founding editor of Many Voices Press and recently edited New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from western states. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize, and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. In 2010, Jaeger was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting civil civic discourse.
“The title for Lowell Jaeger’s Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone comes from his poem, “Four Chaplains,” a story of self-sacrifice in a hopeless situation. These poems puzzle over themes of duty and sacrifice within the give and take of ordinary lives. Those who tell the tales are sometimes generous and sometimes not, but they are unwaveringly honest. “Let’s assume there’s a lesson/ in every small thing,” Jaeger writers in “Follow Your Bliss?” This is a book of small things and lessons made eloquent by Jaeger’s formal and lyrical skill. County library book sales, small town restaurants, road trips, and tow trucks all have a place in this volume whose ultimate theme is acceptance, forgiveness, and love.” --Tami Haaland, former Montana Poet Laureate and author of When We Wake in the Night
“Like William Carlos Williams, William Stafford, and Dorianne Laux, Lowell Jaeger is a poet of commonplace things that matter, the rhythms and cast-off minutes that animate our days and lives. Jaeger writes with wit, wonder, and stark, tender honesty. His language is precise but never pretentious, his narratives full, profound, surprising. In the penultimate poem, we are stopped along a “backroad meadow,” where two horses approach, “as if to ask what news [we] might bring.” Well, let me tell you now the news you’ll find herein is full and true; it is “despite our separate hardships” nothing more, and nothing less, than “the goodness of this day.” --Joe Wilkins, author of The Mountain and the Fathers and When We Were Birds
Driving the Back Road Home by Lowell Jaeger
Purchase Driving the Back Road Home on Amazon
Author bio:
Lowell Jaeger teaches creative writing at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. He is author of six collections of poems: War On War (Utah State University Press, 1988), Hope Against Hope (Utah State University Press 1990), Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press, 2009), WE (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2010), How Quickly What's Passing Goes Past (Grayson Books, 2013) and Driving the Back Road Home (Shabda Press, 2015). He is founding editor of Many Voices Press and recently edited New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from western states. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize, and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. In 2010, Lowell was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting civil civic discourse.
Lowell Jaeger does justice to the images, sounds, and memories of the everyday. The past and the present are recorded with his masterful, but subtle, use of language that accurately captures the magic inherent in every living moment; the holding of a girl’s hand in the eighth grade, the impromptu observation of a job-related performance evaluation, or a student running into his professor on the same day he ditched his class. Jaeger’s interactions in this world are interwoven with the mundane and the mystical, and his poems remind us of the beauty and wonder that awaits us when we pay attention. —Richard Vargas, poet, author of Guernica, revisted and editor/publisher of The Más Tequila Review
For many years now I have enjoyed and admired the poetry of Lowell Jaeger. It reminds us gently, but with a moral and humane undercurrent, to put by “all this/important nonsense” and appreciate the small details of our lives, to see them transformed as he does. Lowell Jaeger writes with a craft, clarity, and subtle intensity that has “my battered earth/singing in tongues.” —Christopher Buckley, poet, author of Back Room at the Philosopher's Club
The poems in Driving the Back Road Home by Lowell Jaeger, in their gentleness and simplicity, awaken us to ourselves and to each other, grounding us in our shared humanity and shared imperfections. They remind us that the natural world of plants and animals, rivers and oceans are also listening to and watching us in our shared earth home. In Jaeger’s poem, “listening,” the speaker is holding a pebble he found in his shoe and is “listening/ to the winds pummeling the dunes/ and the relentless ocean grinding.” After reading Jaeger’s book, when I open my eyes, I see the world with more compassion, and I also see my place in the world transformed. As in his poem, “even the loam breathes,” Jaeger’s poetry is an offering…”a morsel of his bloody flesh” that “strengthens the wings of a fledgling/ straining to fly.” — Teresa Mei Chuc, poet, author of Year of the Hare
Author bio:
Lowell Jaeger teaches creative writing at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. He is author of six collections of poems: War On War (Utah State University Press, 1988), Hope Against Hope (Utah State University Press 1990), Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press, 2009), WE (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2010), How Quickly What's Passing Goes Past (Grayson Books, 2013) and Driving the Back Road Home (Shabda Press, 2015). He is founding editor of Many Voices Press and recently edited New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from western states. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize, and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. In 2010, Lowell was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting civil civic discourse.
Lowell Jaeger does justice to the images, sounds, and memories of the everyday. The past and the present are recorded with his masterful, but subtle, use of language that accurately captures the magic inherent in every living moment; the holding of a girl’s hand in the eighth grade, the impromptu observation of a job-related performance evaluation, or a student running into his professor on the same day he ditched his class. Jaeger’s interactions in this world are interwoven with the mundane and the mystical, and his poems remind us of the beauty and wonder that awaits us when we pay attention. —Richard Vargas, poet, author of Guernica, revisted and editor/publisher of The Más Tequila Review
For many years now I have enjoyed and admired the poetry of Lowell Jaeger. It reminds us gently, but with a moral and humane undercurrent, to put by “all this/important nonsense” and appreciate the small details of our lives, to see them transformed as he does. Lowell Jaeger writes with a craft, clarity, and subtle intensity that has “my battered earth/singing in tongues.” —Christopher Buckley, poet, author of Back Room at the Philosopher's Club
The poems in Driving the Back Road Home by Lowell Jaeger, in their gentleness and simplicity, awaken us to ourselves and to each other, grounding us in our shared humanity and shared imperfections. They remind us that the natural world of plants and animals, rivers and oceans are also listening to and watching us in our shared earth home. In Jaeger’s poem, “listening,” the speaker is holding a pebble he found in his shoe and is “listening/ to the winds pummeling the dunes/ and the relentless ocean grinding.” After reading Jaeger’s book, when I open my eyes, I see the world with more compassion, and I also see my place in the world transformed. As in his poem, “even the loam breathes,” Jaeger’s poetry is an offering…”a morsel of his bloody flesh” that “strengthens the wings of a fledgling/ straining to fly.” — Teresa Mei Chuc, poet, author of Year of the Hare
Press release
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