Linda Russo

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams speaks to American poet Linda Russo about the complexities of writing a poetry of place, the challenges and rewards of creating with empathy, and the question, ‘why aren’t we giving up hope?’.

Linda Russo is the author of two books of poetry, Mirth (Chax Press) and Meaning to Go to the Origin in Some Way, and a collection of literary-geographical essays, To Think of her Writing Awash in Light, selected by John D’Agata as winner of the Subito Press lyric essay prize. Participant, winner of the Bessmilr Brigham Poets Prize (Lost Roads Press), is forthcoming. Scholarly essays have appeared in Among Friends: Engendering the Social Site of Poetry (University of Iowa Press) and other edited collections, and as the preface of Joanne Kyger’s About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation). She lives in the Columbia River Watershed (eastern Washington State, U.S.A.) and teaches at Washington State University.