Richard Hedderman

Stone Poetry Quarterly is featuring “Canticle for the New Moon”

Richard is pleased to announce that Stone Poetry Quarterly has published his poem “Canticle for the New Moon” (December ’22 Poem-of-the-Month) in its May online issue which is now live. Many thanks to D Ward Hey, founding editor, for honoring his work.

According to its website, Stone Poetry Quarterly publishes poetry ranging from the visceral to the cerebral across a full scope of human experience and awareness. They publish poems reflecting a diversity of contemporary perspectives, and well-crafted, artistic explorations of language, subject, and image.

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New Pop-up poetry Event At Milwaukee public museum a Success!

Many thanks to all the aspiring poets who helped us celebrate 414 Day at the Milwaukee Public Museum on April 14th and contributed to the success of our second Pop-Up Poetry event. We saw some really terrific poems from a broad range of visitors, all of whom were clearly having a great time writing original verse about Milwaukee history. Much gratitude to poet and typewriter enthusiast Chris Rundblad for typing up some of the poems on her vintage portables. We may start offering the program quarterly, so keep a an eye on Facebook and here for a heads-up on the next event.

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NEA Visual ARts Panelist

This past year, Richard was honored to serve as a Visual Arts panelist for the 2022 National Endowment for the Arts projects grant program. Founded in 1965 by an act of Congress, the NEA is an independent federal agency that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. His nomination was submitted to the NEA’s Director of Museums by Dr. Brandon Ruud, Abert Family Curator of American Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Additional thanks for the support of Wendy Clark, Director of Museums, Visual Arts & Indemnity/Visual Arts.

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The Stockholm Review of Literature

Richard’s poem “Needle in a Haystack” is featured in the current issue of The Stockholm Review of Literature. Many thanks to Cian McCourt, Poetry Editor, and Kelvin Kellman, Editor-in-Chief, for honoring his work. The Review “publishes superlative literary fiction, poetry and essays, and undertakes to promote the writers and artists that produce it.” 

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barstow & Grand

“Braces Blues,” a new poem, has been selected for publication by Barstow and Grand, an annual print journal highlighting writers connected to Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley and the Upper Midwest.  All profits from issue sales and submission fees support writers in the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild.

New Pushcart Prize Nomination Announced

Richard is pleased to announce his fourth nomination for a Pushcart Prize, an American literary award sponsored by Pushcart Press, that recognizes the best poetry, short fiction, essays, and other genres in the previous calendar year. Many thanks to Pushcart publisher Bill Henderson, and contributing editor Nancy Takacs for honoring his work.

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MPM Writer-in-Residence

Richard has been officially appointed Writer-in-Residence at the Milwaukee Public Museum, where he has served as a poet and the Education Programs Coordinator since 2004. This is the first such staff position in the Museum’s history, and enormous gratitude is due MPM Education Director Adriana Vazquez and Academic Dean Dr. Jen Zaspel for their vigorous support and advocacy. The appointment opens the door to new and expanded creative writing programming at the Museum, and supports the continued exploration of MPM’s exhibits, collections, fields of research, and mission through the application of creative language arts.

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Pop Up Poetry at Milwaukee Public Museum

On June 10th and 11th Richard lead the first Pop-Up Poetry event in the history of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Visitors were invited to compose an original poem inspired by MPM’s Rain Forest gallery, then work with Richard to craft their poem and take home a printed copy. Over the two-day event, several museum visitors wrote original poems celebrating world rain forests and biodiversity, contributing to the success of the program. The next Pop-Up Poetry event will be scheduled at MPM in the coming months.

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Richard’s Latest Book: Choosing a Stone (2020)

Choosing a Stone is a hymn, my hymn, a canticle to this planet – our home base – and everything I know about the living, the non-human, and the abiotic forces that shape our common history here. For me, each poem in the book is a cairn, a stack of weather-worn rocks marking a path through an interior landscape, and across the dark plain of human mystery to a place of infinite revelation and surprise.

Order it at Amazon or Finishing Line Press.

Feeling grateful to novelist John Galligan for his recent endorsement of the book: “Fantastic work. Deep and rich and polished. I’m savoring the poems one at a time, that’s how good they are.”

From “The Discovery of Heaven”

Then heaven became a place

to lie down in for an hour,
with the long summer sun on our faces,

amid the drone of bees in a tended garden,
and above us the vitreous savannas of cloud.

Photo of Richard by Darren Hauck

Photo of Richard by Darren Hauck