Madison's Poet Laureate Andrea Musher: Poetry is the voice of a culture
ENVISION Magazine, 2004
For those who think poetry can only be found in the faded pages of textbooks, take a closer look at the resurgence of poetry seeping into various aspects of community and university life, from its inclusion into a variety of classes and "Works-in-Progress Cafe" poetry readings, to guest writers, such as renowned Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
"Poetry is the voice of a culture," said Madison Poet Laureate and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater associate professor Andrea Musher.
Musher's involvement in the world of poetry is as diverse as its participants. She began writing poetry at age eight, handing out booklets of her poems to her extended family. She has taught innumerable poetry workshops, judged prestigious poetry contests and implemented several platforms for local poets to share their work.
One such platform, produced by Musher, and sponsored by a Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission grant, was 2001's "Poetry Buzz" on 89.9-FM WORT, where each Monday morning show featured a prominent southern Wisconsin poet. The project will soon be archived on WORT's Web site and will allow the browser to read a poem, and listen to the poet reading his work.
During her tenure as poet laureate, Musher also organized 2003's "Poets for Peace" held at Madison's Lisa Link Peace Park. The inaugural reading placed Madison former mayor Susan Baumann and mayor David Cieslewicz onstage reading poems dedicated to the theme of "what peace looks like." Musher has also participated in several peace movement events, including "Epidemic for Peace," "Mad Poets Revolt," and "Poets without Borders," an initiative that began raising money for the four million refugees in Afghanistan after September 11. Most recently, Musher produced "Visualize This: Poets and Visual Art in Performance," an event in connection with the Wisconsin Book Festival.
On the UW-Whitewater campus, Musher has created an environment for faculty and student poets to share their work at the "Works-in-Progress Cafe," held at the Fern Young Terrace nearly every other Tuesday since 1995. The readings are small, intimate and consistently feature an open-mic, an interactive spirit Musher remembers from her days as an undergraduate.
When Musher first attended Cornell University in upstate New York as a young student, she was "transplanted," as she recalls, from the "fun, glamour and excitement of (her native) Washington D.C. to the wave of activism, the anti-war movement and a wonderful creative scene."
"My education at Cornell was multi-fold and I couldn't help being influenced by the student activism and the anti-war movement at that point," said Musher. "I was getting politics, wonderful teachers that wanted to think about the world, visiting artists, and other people who were on some kind of quest. It was also a moment in time when women, in particular, were discovering who we wanted to be."
Inspired by this activism and armed with Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," Musher continued her studies at UW-Madison toward a doctoral degree. She described this as a time when the women's movement was becoming institutionalized and where she took, then taught some of the first women's studies courses.
"Women's studies as a field was absolutely crucial and central to my development and finding my voice as a woman," Musher said.
Since Musher began teaching creative writing, women's studies and literature classes at UW-Whitewater in 1985, she has been lauded by colleagues and students for her dynamic teaching, creativity, and cultivating the voice of a culture.
"Musher has been a driving, tireless force in working on the" Works-in-Progress Cafe"," said George Savage, department chair of languages and literatures at UW-Whitewater. "Her energy has not only kept it going, but now she has drawn a larger audience. The "Works-in-Progress Cafe" fulfills an important cultural niche on the campus." – Kate Stoffel