John Holbrook, author of 'A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak

From: KUFM - Montana Public Radio
Series: The Write Question
Length: 29:01

During this program, John Holbrook talks about and reads poems from his fourth collection, 'A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak.' Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: John Holbrook, author of 'A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak
From: KUFM - Montana Public Radio

Clearbluesky_small John Holbrook, with wife Judith, lives and writes in Missoula, Montana. He studied under Richard Hugo and Madeline Defrees in the late 60's and early 70's. His work has appeared in over one hundered magazines, anthologies, and periodicals. He has published four books of poetry, the latest being "A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak," published by Foothills Publishing in 2010.

His poem “Petition to Common Sense,” was chosen by the poet James Dickey for the first-place prize in the 1990 Florida Poetry Contest. His first book, Clear Water on the Swan, shared first prize with short story writer Ron Fischer, in Montana Arts Council's 1991 First Book Award. In 2002, Pudding House Publications published his chapbook Loose Wool, River Tackle, Pencil Drafts, a manuscript which grew out of a grant from the Ludvig Vogelstein Foundation in 2000 to write a sequence of poems on various rivers in his region. Pudding House Pudding House published another chapbook entitled The Dance, in 2007.

Over the years John Holbrook has worked as a mechanical draftsman, an industrial diamond salesman, a laborer, contract house painter, and as a participating poet in the Montana and Utah artists and writers in the schools programs. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including: Antaeus, the Carolina Quarterly, Comstock Review, Cutbank, the Florida Review, Hubbub, Mississippi Review, Nebraska Review, Poetry Northwest, South Carolina Review, and the Southern Poetry Review.

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Piece Description

John Holbrook, with wife Judith, lives and writes in Missoula, Montana. He studied under Richard Hugo and Madeline Defrees in the late 60's and early 70's. His work has appeared in over one hundered magazines, anthologies, and periodicals. He has published four books of poetry, the latest being "A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak," published by Foothills Publishing in 2010.

His poem “Petition to Common Sense,” was chosen by the poet James Dickey for the first-place prize in the 1990 Florida Poetry Contest. His first book, Clear Water on the Swan, shared first prize with short story writer Ron Fischer, in Montana Arts Council's 1991 First Book Award. In 2002, Pudding House Publications published his chapbook Loose Wool, River Tackle, Pencil Drafts, a manuscript which grew out of a grant from the Ludvig Vogelstein Foundation in 2000 to write a sequence of poems on various rivers in his region. Pudding House Pudding House published another chapbook entitled The Dance, in 2007.

Over the years John Holbrook has worked as a mechanical draftsman, an industrial diamond salesman, a laborer, contract house painter, and as a participating poet in the Montana and Utah artists and writers in the schools programs. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including: Antaeus, the Carolina Quarterly, Comstock Review, Cutbank, the Florida Review, Hubbub, Mississippi Review, Nebraska Review, Poetry Northwest, South Carolina Review, and the Southern Poetry Review.