Sterle, Francine 1952–

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Sterle, Francine 1952–

(Francine M. Sterle)

PERSONAL: Born July 5, 1952, in Eveleth, MN; daughter of Frank and Anne (Rahne) Sterle; married Jonathan Speare (a clinical psychologist), July 20, 1984; children: Eleanor Speare, Benjamin Speare. Education: Bemidji State University, B.S., 1974, M.A., 1976; Warren Wilson College, M.F.A., 1991; attended Oxford University.

ADDRESSES: Home—4023 River Rd., Iron, MN 55751. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Tupelo Press, P.O. Box 539, Dorset, VT 05251. E-mail—fmsterle@ northlc.com.

CAREER: Writer, poet, and educator. Lake Superior Writers, mentor; poetry teacher in academic and community settings. Participant in the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Spoleto Writers' Workshop, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

MEMBER: Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Associated Writing Programs.

AWARDS, HONORS: Loft-McKnight Foundation Award, The Loft, 1990, for poetry; Minnesota State Arts Board fellowship and Career Opportunity Grant, 1993, for poetry; Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, 1997; Minnesota Editor's Prize, Tupelo Press, 2001, and Pushcart Prize nominee, both for Every Bird Is One Bird; residency fellowships from the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Leighton Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

The White Bridge, Poetry Harbor, 1999.

Every Bird Is One Bird, Tupelo Press (Dorset, VT), 2001.

Nude in Winter, Tupelo Press (Dorset, VT), 2006.

Poems have appeared in literary journals, including the North American Review, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, Zone 3, Birmingham Review, Cutbank, Wisconsin Review, Negative Capability, Visions International, Rosebud, California Quarterly, and Atlanta Review, and in the anthologies 33 Minnesota Poets and the Cancer Poetry Project.

SIDELIGHTS: Francine Sterle is a poet whose works are often about the world of nature, both as it is perceived on the outside and as the inner worlds that people sense. As the author noted in the Midwest Quarterly, "I am rooted in the landscape of northern Minnesota." She went on to write, "when I sit down to write, this is the world that enters me." For example, in Sterle's first book of poems, The White Bridge, the author writes a poem about a woman who is transformed into the ethereal body of an owl. In her poem "Habitat," Sterle writes about the "heavy air rolling from the uplands" and the creatures living in a marsh. In her Midwest Quarterly article, which included the poem "Habitat," the author wrote that structurally her poems are based "on simple configurations … in order to heighten the sense of primary seeing as well as to convey an instinctive, emotional involvement." In her second volume of poetry, Every Bird Is One Bird, Sterle presents her observations of the world around her through poems such as "Sparrow at My Window," a section of the longer poem "Two Women." Writing a review of Every Bird Is One Bird in the Boston Review, Catherine Daly commented, "Her sensible, compactly written lyrics build upon traditions of meditative and investigative poetry."

Sterle told CA: "Nude in Winter is a wide-ranging collection of poems that explore the intertwined lives of painter and painted and the powerful dynamic between desire and the disturbance it can yield. The canvas of poems stretches from the tormented self-portraits of Toulouse-Lautrec and Egon Schiele to the idealized depictions of Sassaferrato's madonna and Man Ray's nude, from Kahlo to Kollwitz, O'Keeffe to De Kooning. Nude in Winter is poised at the threshold between seer and seen and moves from the dark corners of experience to the sensual light of renewal."