“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of…”: On Wisconsin, Michigan, and the most famous question in the USA April 3, 2011: About a decade ago when I was researching Ronald Reagan for my verse play about the 40th President of the United States firing striking PATCO workers (“Capitalization”), I discovered that the Reagan administration had – like the great cut & paste poets and artists of history and of today – Apple X’d and Apple V’d perhaps the most [...] by Mark Nowak

A poet’s take on Wisconsin, as Wisconsin governor takes out poets March 8, 2011: Bloomberg reports that Wisconsin's Poet Laureate post, created by order of then-Governor Tommy Thompson in 2001, will be one of the casualties of embattled Governor Scott Walker's budget bill. The post comes with a stipend that covers up to $2,000 in gas money a year to make up for the poet's travels across the state to lecture and read. The [...] by Harriet Staff