January 5, 2017
University of Montana Western English faculty Sally Cobau and O. Alan Weltzien were recently published in the Montana-based poetry volume, Poems Across the Big Sky II by Many Voices Press.
University of Montana Western English faculty Sally Cobau and O. Alan Weltzien were recently published in the Montana-based poetry volume, Poems Across the Big Sky II by Many Voices Press.
Published in Kalispell, Mont. at Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC), Many Voices Press was started by Lowell Jaeger, an FVCC English instructor and published poet.
“Our goal in this publishing project is to give deserving Montana poets an opportunity to be heard and to give readers everywhere a generous sampling of Montana’s best poets,” Jaeger said.
Weltzien contributed two poems for the collection, “Blue Eyes” and “Maple Floor.” Cobau submitted one poem titled “Almost Halloween.” Their poems will appear together with some of Montana’s most well known writers, including Jim Harrison, Michael Earl Craig and Sheryl Noethe.
Cobau is an instructor of English at UMW and is currently poetry editor of the online literary journal, Neworld Review. She has had poems and short stories published in LitRag, Room Magazine and The Sun.
“I’m pleased my poem was selected for the second edition of Poems Across the Big Sky,” Cobau said. “Many Voices Press has put together an excellent collection of Montana’s finest poets and writers and it’s an honor to be included alongside them.”
A self-described “born-again poet,” Weltzien is a longtime English professor at Montana Western. He has edited, co-edited, or authored nine books including a memoir, ‘A Father and an Island: Reflections on Loss,” and his first book of poetry, “To Kilimanjaro and Back.” His most recent works include, “Exceptional Mountains: A Cultural History of the Pacific Northwest Volcanoes” and “Rembrandt in the Stairwell,” his third book of poetry.
In addition to his contributions to the Big Sky II anthology, Weltzien’s work, “Literary Sociology in a Montana town: Novelist Thomas Savage Rewrites Old Dillon” will appear in the spring 2017 issue of Great Plains Quarterly.
Both Cobau and Weltzien have made recent reading appearances across Montana in support of the volume’s release.
— Montana Western —
