The VPR Poem of the Week is April Ossmann’s “The Mechanical Home Care Bed,” which appears in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue (Volume XIII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.
April Ossmann is the author of Anxious Music (Four Way Books, 2007), and has published poetry in journals and anthologies including Harvard Review, Colorado Review, and From the Fishouse; and her awards include a Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award. Formerly the executive director of Alice James Books (2000—2008), she owns a consulting business offering manuscript editing and publishing advice to poets. She is among the inaugural faculty members for the new, low-residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe, and teaches private tutorials and poetry workshops using a method she developed to teach poets to revise their work objectively. She has also taught at the University of Maine—Farmington and Lebanon College, and lives in Post Mills, VT.
Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues 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.