Diane Raptosh

Diane Raptosh was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and raised in Idaho. She received a BA from the College of Idaho in 1983 and an MFA from the University of Michigan in 1986.

Raptosh is the author of five poetry collections: Human Directional (Etruscan Press, 2016); American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press, 2013), which was nominated for the 2013 National Book Award; Parents from a Different Alphabet (Guernica Editions, 2008); Labor Songs (Guernica Editions, 1999); and Just West of Now (Guernica Editions, 1992).

The poet Kerri Webster writes of American Amnesiac, which chronicles the journey of a man who has lost his memory: “Against the background of our cultural forgetting, the shortcomings of America’s working memory, Diane Raptosh introduces us to this soul who might be any of us as he pieces together a world and a self from bewilderment.”

In 2013, Raptosh was selected as Boise’s inaugural poet laureate, and she went on to receive Idaho’s highest literary position, writer in residence, that same year. She currently holds the Eyck-Berringer Endowed Chair in English at The College of Idaho, where she also directs the criminal justice and prison studies program. She lives in Boise, Idaho.

Bibliography

Human Directional (Etruscan Press, 2016)
American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press, 2013)
Parents from a Different Alphabet (Guernica Editions, 2008)
Labor Songs (Guernica Editions, 1999)
Just West of Now (Guernica Editions, 1992)