Poetry Night with Joanne Esser and Maureen McDole

The poems in Joanne Esser's Nothing Is Stationary proclaim, sometimes reluctantly, that change is a biological constant, an emotional condition, and a spiritual conundrum. Even as they reflect on the past and live fully in the present, Esser's words leave room for things still taking shape--like how moving water shapes stone, how a great tree's shadow shifts across the grass almost imperceptibly over the course of minutes, hours, a whole day. These poems observe the tilted, spinning planet and all the things, the animals, the people--dear ones and strangers--that hold onto it. And they glimpse the self as it watches itself weather, age. Even as unstable as this world can be, when the poet pays attention, life keeps offering what is needed.

Joanne Esser is the author of the new poetry collection Nothing Is Stationary, published this spring by Holy Cow! Press. Her other books include All We Can Do Is Name Them, Humming At The Dinner Table, and the chapbook I Have Always Wanted Lightning. Recent work appears in Great Lakes Review, Humana Obscura, I-70 Review, Dunes Review, The Main Street Rag, and Orca, among other literary journals. She earned an MFA from Hamline University and has been a teacher of young children for over forty years. She lives with her husband in Eagan, Minnesota.

Mending the Nets: each new knot, a soul impression of family life and isolation, flashed forward for meaning — for liberation. Cast in a disruptive family web of fishermen, this is a raw intimacy poetics in touch with uniquely Floridian elemental forces, where air, sunlight, water, and sand are subtly transformative. “My job is to jump in and let the water rearrange me. The wake I’ve made swells into every area of my life, and the results are infinite.”

This is a monograph of 20th-century Florida in flash descriptions mending the ‘intra-’ with the ‘inter-’ personal in the dark. “I follow the moon. The dark doesn’t scare me. The night sky, my classroom.”

Maureen McDole was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is a direct descendant of carnies, carpenters and fishermen. This do-it-yourself ethos in her DNA infuses every area of her life. As far back as she can remember she loved to write.

She is the author of four books of poems, (2006), (2011), (2021) and Mending the Nets (2026).

She has an English B.A., with Literary Studies Concentration from University of South Florida and a Certificate in Arts & Culture Strategy from University of Pennsylvania. In 2011 she received a Certificate from National Speakers Association’s Speaker Academy and in 2024 she received a Certificate in Systems View of Life from the Capra Course.

Maureen has been leading workshops and speaking about creativity and leadership for over 20 years. In 2013 she founded the literary arts organization, Keep St. Pete Lit, because she believes wholeheartedly in the power of literature to change the world.

She is currently the artist-in-residence at GISJane, working in the fields of water restoration, climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, and community resiliency. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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