Iowa

State Poet Laureate

In 1999, Iowa established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Debra Marquart, who was appointed in 2019. Marquart is the author of many collections of poetry, including Small Buried Things (New Rivers Press, 2015).

Type	Title	State
Literary Magazine	Open Field	Iowa
Literary Magazine	Flyway	Iowa
Festival	Iowa Summer Writing Festival	Iowa
Conference	Iowa Poetry Out Loud	Iowa
Writing Program	The Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa	Iowa
Writing Program	Iowa State University MFA Program	Iowa
Writing Program	University of Northern Iowa Creative Writing	Iowa
Writing Program	Cornell College Department of English	Iowa
Literary Organization	Humanities Iowa	Iowa
Literary Organization	Iowa Arts Council	Iowa

Go Greyhound

A few hours after Des Moines
the toilet overflowed.
This wasn't the adventure it sounds.

I sat with a man whose tattoos
weighed more than I did.
He played Hendrix on mouth guitar.
His Electric Ladyland lips
weren't fast enough
and if pitch and melody
are the rudiments of music,
this was just
memory, a body nostalgic
for the touch of adored sound.

Hope's a smaller thing on a bus.

You hope a forgotten smoke consorts
with lint in the pocket of last
resort to be upwind
of the human condition, that the baby
sleeps
and when this never happens,
that she cries 
with the lullaby meter of the

Bob Hicok

2004

Quandary

All night I flew the dark recess of God’s mind.
It was arranged like Iowa fields—

not a damn thing missing.
You ask how I survived.

I lived on a message, broad light
at the end of the world.

Words, they have so much in common with departure,

the clouds elliptical & nervous.
Why translate? It’s just a revolving door.

“Chill wind” has seven
components. One is loss.

Louise Mathias

2004

Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa

Before there was the time we see
there was the time we saw through,
when the biggest bear lied down,
exhaled the boundary of herself—
woof!—and rolled onto her side.

Her family followed in a line,
bending like an oxbow lake,
crocheting holes in the land
where water bubbled through
(so much does bubble through).

Birds saw the bears
bubbling up and dug it.
Whoa!

Jennifer L. Knox

2016

Poetry Near You

Recent & Featured Listings

Amy Clampitt

Jennifer L. Knox

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Go Greyhound

Quandary

Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa

Poetry Near You

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Iowa

Recent & Featured Listings

Amy Clampitt

Jennifer L. Knox

Marvin Bell

Related Poems

Go Greyhound

Quandary

Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa

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