Susan Rich: "Waving Goodbye to River Road"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Susan Rich’s “Waving Goodbye to River Road,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2005 issue (Volume VI, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Susan Rich’s first book of poetry, The Cartographer's Tongue / Poems of the World (White Pine Press, 2000), won the PEN West Poetry Award and the Peace Corps Writers' Poetry Award. Two other collections, Cures Include Travel (2006) and the forthcoming The Alchemist’s Kitchen (2010), are from White Pine Press as well. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Gettysburg Review, New England Review, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, Prism International, and Witness.

The 2008 TLS Poetry Competition was won last month by Susan Rich for her poem “Different Places To Pray.” The winner and runners-up were chosen by a ballot of readers, from a shortlist of twelve poems drawn up by Mick Imlah, the poetry editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and Alice Quinn, Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and formerly poetry editor of the New Yorker. Susan Rich lives in Seattle and teaches at Highline Community College.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.