icon caret-left icon caret-right instagram pinterest linkedin facebook twitter goodreads question-circle facebook circle twitter circle linkedin circle instagram circle goodreads circle pinterest circle

Biography & Works

SUZANNE WADLEY JAWORSKI RHODENBAUGH is a poet, essayist & critic born in Tampa, 1944, to Georgia natives Marguerite Douglas Wadley & William Morrill Wadley, III.  She lives in St. Louis and is the author of

 

The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus (Homestead Lighthouse Press, 2022)

      "The poems offer a rich and varied world...The music, the wry humor, & the precise

        imagery combine to create the voice of a woman who has lived deeply..."

                                                                                        -- Marjorie Stelmach

 The Whole Shebang (WordTech, 2010)

     Narrative & lyric poems.

     "...granite clarity, easy-rolling wit & a searing honesty..." -- Pattiann Rogers

 

Lick of Sense (Helicon Nine Editions, 2001)

     Winner of the Marianne Moore Poetry Prize.

     "...as if Elizabeth Bishop suddenly turned up in a Southern gothic..." -- Molly Peacock

 

The Deepest South I've Gotten and Other Essays (Hell Yes Press, 2017)

     23 short essays first written or published 1971-2017, on people, places, politics & poetry.

 

Four poetry chapbooks: A Gold Rain at Lonelyfarm (Heatherstone Press, 1990);

Gardening Where the Land Remembers War (Two Herons Press, 1992);

The Shine on Loss (Winner of the Painted Bride Quarterly Chapbook Series, 1998);

Greatest Hits, 1970-2000 (Pudding House Publications, 2001).

 

Poems, essays, articles & reviews widely published in periodicals & anthologies, including:

 

The American Scholar, The Hudson Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England

Review, Poetry East, Salmagundi, Southern Poetry Review, The Washington Post;

& anthologies by Columbia University Press, Black Sparrow Press, Texas Review Press, 

The Spirit That Moves Us Press & others.

 

BA, English, University of South Florida, 1966; MPH, Medical Care Administration,

University of Michigan, 1974; MFA, Creative Writing - Poetry, Vermont College, 1987;

Hebrew Ulpan, Kibbutz Ginegar, Israel, 1969; Farrar Scholar in Poetry, Bread Loaf

Writers Conference, 1988; Poetry Fellow, Vermont Studio Center, 1993.

 

Since 1976 married to Tom Rhodenbaugh, an administrator of poverty, labor and human rights

programs.  Stepmother of a daughter and son, birthmother of a daughter.

 

Literary papers in the Suzanne Wadley Jaworski Rhodenbaugh Papers, Special Collections, University of South Florida Library, Tampa.

 

BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM Barnes & Noble, Homestead Lighthouse Press and

other online sources, and from DUNAWAY BOOKS, ST. LOUIS: booksdunaway@gmail.com.