Connie Wanek

Connie Wanek was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1952 and grew up outside Green Bay, where she attended a one-room school. When she was twelve, her family relocated to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and she received a BS from New Mexico State University in 1975.

Wanek is the author of Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), On Speaking Terms (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), Hartley Field (Holy Cow! Press, 2002), and Bonfire (New Rivers Press, 1997). The poet Louis Jenkins has said, “Her poems take the moment, turn it upside down, open it, examine it. They give us a view from the dragonfly’s eye.”

In 2006, US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser named Wanek a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress. She is also the author of a book of prose, Summer Cars (Will o’ the Wisp Press, 2014), and is the recipient of the 2009 George Morrison Artist of the Year Award. She lives with her husband, Phil, and their children in Duluth, Minnesota.