2023 UW Poetry MFA Graduates Reading

×

Expand

Mandy Tu

Aurora Shimshak in a field.

Aurora Shimshak

This Wisconsin Book Festival event doubles as a reading by this year's UW-Madison students graduating with a master of fine arts degree in poetry: Megan Kim, Renée LePreau, Caleb A.P. Parker, Aurora Shimshak and Mandy Moe Pwint Tu. “Seems a shame to waste/ all that color and sound,” as Shimshak puts it in her poem “Who knows, maybe I'm already living.” “My visual cortex...makes up for what it lacks in hustle/cobbling images from video games/I've never played.” So “level up” and catch these five while they are still in town.

media release:

MEGAN KIM was raised in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. She is the editor of Frontier Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Ninth Letter, and The Adroit Journal, among others, and she has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.

RENÉE LEPREAU has worked as an out-of-hospital midwife, lactation consultant, and community organizer. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Seneca Review, The Worcester Review, Dunes Review, Santa Ana River Review, and others. Her photographs have been exhibited in group shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Harvey Milk Photo Center, and others.

CALEB A.P. PARKER is a poet and musician from the industrialized Texas Gulf Coast. After spending years in the nexus of the Episcopal Church, cooperative housing, and the Austin music scene, he began his MFA following his father’s death from cancer.

AURORA SHIMSHAK is a poet and educator from Wisconsin. She’s worked as a high school English teacher, a public radio intern, and as the managing editor of Ecotone. Her poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Spillway, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, and Poetry Northwest. She is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Find more at aurorashimshak.com.

MANDY MOE PWINT TU is a writer and a poet from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, West Trestle Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Monsoon Daughter (Thirty West Publishing House, 2022) and Unsprung (Newfound, 2023).