The Poet and the Poem
2026-27 Series

Featured Michael Gushue and Cortney Bledsoe

Click here for Michael Gushue and Cortney Bledsoe podcast.mp3

Michael Gushue has been published in many journals, including the Indiana Review, Third Coast, Eunoia, Gargoyle, and American Letters and Commentary. He co-ran the BAWA Poetry Reading Series and Poetry at the Watergate and runs the nanopress 81 Names with Dan Vera. His books are Pine Barrens, Modern Love, Q&A for the End of the World (in collaboration with Kim Roberts), Sympathy for the Monster, Gather Down Women, Conrad, Pachinko Mouth, I Never Promised You A Sea Monkey (in collaboration with CL Bledsoe), The Judy Poems (in collaboration with CL Bledsoe), and—forthcoming—Palace Depression (in collaboration with CL Bledsoe). He lives with his wife, Susan, in the Brookland neighborhood of WashingtonDC.

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of forty books, including his newest poetry collection,Banana for Scale,and his latest novel The Moon on My Back. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue: https://medium.com/@howtoeven Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.

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