Biography
Jenne Andrews’ most recent collection is Blackbirds Dance in the Empire of Love, Finishing Line Press 2013, advance reviewed by Jim Moore, Invisible Strings, Graywolf Press and Dawn Potter, Director, Conference on Poetry and Teaching, the Frost Place.
Her first published poem appeared in The Colorado Review in 1971, selected by then young guest-editor Canadian poet Tom Wayman.
Since that time, her first collection, a chapbook, In Pursuit of the Family, was published by Robert Bly and the Minnesota Writers Publishing House, she won an NEA Fellowship in Literature, and was the four-year fulltime Poet in Residence for the St. Paul Schools.
Between 1978 and 1988 Andrews earned Bachelor’s, Master’s and MFA degrees from Colorado State University under poets Mary Crow and Bill Tremblay, and two collections appeared; Reunion, from Lynx House Press, Christopher Howell, editor and publisher and The Dark Animal of Liberty, Leaping Mountain Press, edited by John Bradley and James Grabill.
Andrews’ lyricism and use of the full keyboard of the English language have been heralded by Tom McGrath, Lucien Stryk, Jim Tolan, Maxine Kumin and a host of other fellow poets. A fall from a horse in 2007 rendered her housebound; she lives on six acres in the Poudre River valley with her partner, the writer Jack Brooks.
She maintains two blogs: La Parola Vivace and Loquaciously Yours. A highly engaging interview with Ms. Andrews appears at the web journal Writing Without Paper , July 2010 archives.
