Welcome
Nancy Richardson’s poems concern coming of age in the rust-belt of Ohio during a period of decay of the physical and political structures that made the region once solid and predictable. The poems chart the shifting of the foundations upon which a life is built and the unpredictability of events that have profound personal and political consequences..
Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies and her first chapbooks, Unwelcomed Guest
and The Fire’s Edge, focus on the events that occurred in the rust-belt of Ohio from the late 1970s onward. Her poetry book, An Everyday Thing, expands the narrative of that time and place, and concerns the effects of the period’s dislocation years afterward. That book received a Kirkus Star and was named one of the Best 100 Indie Books of 2018 in all genres.
“A debut collection that vividly captures both the dreams and despair of blue-collar America… A dazzling work by a deeply intuitive writer.”- Kirkus Reviews
The poems in her new book, Going Home, have been selected from those in these previous volumes and combined with recent poems in a memoir that testifies to the poet’s life working for justice in education and government.
Nancy lives and works in Vermont. She has an M.F.A in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, an M.P.A. in Public Management from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Education from Kent State University.