My poems can make a difference!

Poet Bio: Veronica Schuder is an Instructor at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana where she started teaching in 2000. She has her MFA from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, where she studied contemporary poetry under Miller Williams. She has published poetry in various print and online magazines, most recently The Laurel Review and The New Ohio Review. Her poetry often attempts to reconcile the conflicting states of female identity within the traditions of the American family unit, and reveals equally conflicting influences: American formalism, French & American Symbolism, and the lyrical contents of contemporary pop music. She lives in Monroe, Louisiana with her husband, son, stepson, two dogs, and a great many problematic squirrels.

Personal Poetry Goals:

Poetry that manages to be funny absolutely fascinates me. I guess it has something to do with knowing how and where to let go and let language do its own thing. If I had to pick one single goal, it would be to figure out when to do that. Poets are naturally obsessed with the wealth of absurdity in personal experience, and I think it's important to explore the subtle difference between writing that risks badness and writing that is just bad. I'm not sure I know what the difference is, but it's been fun trying to work it out. Poets I admire, like Mark Halliday and Dean Young and John Gallaher, seem to understand that the tension between voice and form can be comedic in a poem that looks at fear of aging or insecurity or divorce or loneliness—and the poem sounds funny while it isn't. Miller Williams called this "whistling in the dark." If I had to sum up what I'm trying to do with my work in ten words, I'd say I want to write poems that whistle in the dark.

Additional Goals:

1) On language: Continue finding channels that achieve complexity through simplicity
2) On domestic life: Find the very, very thin line between sentiment and lies
3) On the issue of "what matters" in poetry: I'd like to learn how to fail at knowing what matters, and to be better at ignoring the advice of writers to seem who have already figured it out, at least for their work. In other words, I'd like to be more confident that what matters to me will matter to the audience I want to reach.

Your support gives me vital inspiration as I write for thirty days this month.

Tupelo Press provides the canvas, I bring my words, accompanied by other fine poets, writing thirty poems in thirty days, all ours to edit and submit as we wish. 30/30 poems have been taken by over 90 journals and featured in over 40 published chapbooks, all so Tupelo Press can keep publishing exquisite and diverse voices that might never be heard otherwise.

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