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Minnesota Poet Sharon Chmielarz

Sharon Chmielarz spent her first eighteen years within sight of the Missouri River seen from her family’s front porch steps, which inspired six poems about the river in her new poetry collection.  The Yellowstone Trail is an old name for the current Highway 12, which passes through Milbank, Aberdeen, Mobridge and the Standing Rock Reservation.  The Trail serves as a way in and out of the sections, just as the Trial was a way in and out of her hometown of South Dakota, as was the railroad – the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific – which makes appearances in several poems.  Her work has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series, and nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize.  She’s the recipient of the 2012 Jane Kenyon Award from the Water Stone Review. Chmielarz talked about her new book, "Love from the Yellowstone Trail."