Scott Lowery counts himself lucky for a lifelong fascination with words. He grew up in Minneapolis, and lived for nearly thirty years in southeastern Minnesota, among the river bluffs near Winona. His poems appear in many print and online journals, and he has been awarded the Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize, Pushcart and Best of Net nominations, and a residency at the Anderson Center. Lowery’s new chapbook, Mutual Life, documents everyday life during tumultuous times. Empty-handed, his first collection, won the Emergence Chapbook Prize from Red Dragonfly Press, and was recently reissued in an expanded second edition. A 30-year veteran public school teacher, Lowery has led writing workshops with young poets from grade school through college. He is also a singer-songwriter and has recorded three CDs of Americana roots music. Lowery and his wife Connie Blackburn recently moved to Milwaukee, drawn by the inexorable pull of young grandchildren.
CONTACT
For general correspondence (readings, events, publications, chit-chat):
slowery969@gmail.com
For teaching artist work with young writers:
reallivepoet@gmail.com
GOING SMALLER
Days like this, you slip as you kick,
wind again too warm to stiffen the snow.
We tilt off-kilter another degree, or…
it’s just a mid-March thaw: no sweat, yet.
Either way, I can’t outrun the news.
Yesterday, the radio host asked the expert,
what about a national health service?
This is America. Forget about it!
Across the lake, a pack of snowmobiles
whines past, snarling like misplaced anger.
I narrow my attention to the oak leaf
that still holds on, the laughing nuthatch:
how small do I need to go before
I’m no longer living in any nation?
A full moon rises, factual among the trees.
from Mutual Life (Finishing Line Press, 2023)
scott lowery.org 