Diane Raptosh: Difference between revisions

Diane Raptosh is an American poet and college professor who became the first poet laureate for Boise, Idaho.

Born in Idaho, Raptosh grew up in Nampa, Idaho and attended Bishop Kelly High School. She attended the The College of Idaho in Caldwell, Idaho and then received a Masters in Fine Arts from the [University of Michigan]]. She serves as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013–2016) and the Boise Poet Laureate (2013). Her most recent book of poems, American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press), was long listed for the 2013 National Book Award. A book-length dramatic monologue, the work investigates the complexities of being American in an age of corruption, corporations, and global conflict.

The recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Raptosh holds the Eyck-Berringer Endowed Chair in English at The College of Idaho in Caldwell, Idaho. She teaches literature and creative writing, and directs the criminal justice/prison studies program.

The author of three earlier books of poems: Just West of Now (Guernica 1992), Labor Songs (Guernica 1999), and Parents from a Different Alphabet (Guernica 2008), Raptosh has published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Terrain.org, and OccuPoetry. An active ambassador for poetry, she conducts writing workshops, gives readings, and lectures on poetry in a variety of locations ranging from university auditoriums to maximum security prisons, school buses to riverbanks.

Raptosh lives in Boise, Idaho, with her family.

Honors and Awards

• 2013 American Amnesiac is long listed for the National Book Award.
• 2013–2016 Named Idaho Writer-in-Residence
• 2013 Named Boise Poet Laureate
• 2007 Fellowship in Literature, Idaho Commission on the Arts
• 2001 Fellowship in Literature, Idaho Commission on the Arts
• 1991 Fellowship in Literature, Idaho Commission on the Arts

Full Length Poetry Collections

• American Amnesiac. Etruscan Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-9839346-6-0
• Parents From a Different Alphabet. 2008. Guernica Editions. ISBN 978-1550712858
• Labor Songs. 1999. Guernica Editions. ISBN 978-1550710595
• Just West of Now. 1992. Guernica Editions. ISBN 978-0920717714

Anthology Publications

Woven on the Wind: Woman Write About Friendship in the Sagebrush West

Writing With An Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors

Families: The Frontline of Pluralism

Circle of Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Western Women Writers

Sinatra: . . . but buddy, I'm a kind of poem

The North American Italian Renaissance (Essay Series 43)