The VPR Poem of the Week is Michelle Bitting’s “Premiere,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2008-2009 issue (Volume X, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. This poem also has been published in Poetry from Paradise Valley, an anthology of poems from the first decade of VPR, recently released by Pecan Grove Press.
Michelle Bitting has published work in numerous journals, including Cortland Review, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod, Passages North, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, River Styx, Sou’wester, and Verse Daily. Her full-length collection of poems, Good Friday Kiss, won the DeNovo First Book Award, and C & R Press published it in 2008. Bitting is also the author of a chapbook, Blue Laws. She teaches in the U.C.L.A. Extension Writers’ Program as well as for California Poets in the Schools.
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 visit it.