Jerry Wemple

Jerry Wemple is the author of two collections of poetry: You Can See It from Here (Lotus Press, 2000), which won the annual Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, and The Civil War in Baltimore (Word Press, 2005). He is also co-editor, with Marjorie Maddox, of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press, 2005).

A Pennsylvania native, Wemple often writes about the people and places in the Susquehanna Valley where he grew up. He draws on the history of places, weaving fact and lore, connecting it to the contemporary. Shara McCallum termed his work “remarkably bare and direct,” yet with the ability to “crystallize the past and define who we are.” Harry Humes states, “From these meager lives and places, Jerry Wemple creates real beauty, compassion, and understanding.”

Wemple’s poems, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous venues including Ninth Letter, The Connecticut Review, West Branch, 5 AM, HEArt, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. He has given readings and workshops from the elementary school to university level. He is also the recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, the Word Journal Chapbook Prize, and university awards for teaching and academic excellence.

Wemple served in the US Navy for several years, and also worked as a newspaper reporter in Massachusetts. He holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a B.A. in Writing and Literature from Vermont College. He is an associate professor of English at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches in the creative writing program and co-directs The Big Dog Reading Series.