Meet SUSAN ROCHE, At Large Member of UTSPS

Susan Roche is from...Kansas, a girl whose one and only hobby was reading. She’s lived all over the world and worked with students with disabilities, designed learning materials plus training for empowerment and micro enterprise creation with economically vulnerable groups both overseas and in the U.S. Along the way,  Susan discovered... poetry I hadn't known before and began to write some of my own. I believe in our power - as learners, writers, listeners, and readers - to make our own meaning. I love the paradox of poetry: sliding on a poem’s words into that word-less space, that attention-place floating beneath words. 

Susan tells us…After wandering in the desert every chance we got for ages, my husband and I decided, nearly on the spur of the moment about three years ago, to move from the Washington DC area to the red rock desert of Castle Valley, just outside Moab. We were recently retired and wanted to answer the call of this landscape before we got too decrepit! Early on, I joined Moab Poets and Writers, and the Utah State Poetry Society as an at-large member––(someone who doesn't live near a chapter of UTSPS.) A new friend of mine had showed me some older Utah Sings volumes published by UTSPS, and I wanted to be part of this amazing Utah poetry community. I've been lucky enough to participate in several valuable UTSPS workshops, conferences and to receive some wonderful poetry mentoring from the Critique Bureau. I'm grateful for the ongoing inspirations on the UTSPS website - and on the new Blog! 

Though I've published a few poems, it's still hard to gather courage to send pieces out, so I was thrilled to be featured reading a poem this June in the Utah Division of Arts and Museums Bite-Size Poetry video series:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqnBkP3znM