John PalenLife-long Midwesterner John Palen worked as a store clerk, draftsman, newspaper reporter, editor, and journalism teacher. Over the last 50 years his poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry Northwest, Sou'wester, Birmingham Poetry Review, ad The Formalist, and in anthologies published by Wayne State University Press and Milkweed Editions. He won the Passages North Poetry Competition in 1989 and has been a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. He earned a doctorate in American Studies at Michigan State University and was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities journalism fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Mayapple Press brought out Open Communion: New and Selected Poems in 1994 and Distant Music in 2017. Recent work has appeared in Cider Press Review, Sleet, The MacGuffin, Willawaw Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Off the Coast, Great Lakes Review, and Delmarva Review. He lives, writes and gardens on the Illinois Grand Prairie. Read More Read Less