Draft:Michael Wurster

Michael Wurster is a poet and poetry activist.. He was one of the founders of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange in 1974, taught at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts School for seventeen years, and was the inaugural recipient of the Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award

Early Life and Education
Wurster was born in Moline, Illinois (1940) but lived in Clinton, Iowa. His father was the local dentist, known as "Doc." His first publications came in 1954, though he didn't mention them to his parents. They were in the Fredericksburg Freelance Star. Before tenth grade, his family moved to Media, Pennsylvania.

He attended Dickinson College, where he co-edited The Hornbook with Walter Rosenstein. He graduated in the Class of 1962.

Pittsburgh & Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange
Moving to Pittsburgh after college, Wurster sold encyclopedias for a number of years, before taking a caseworker position in Social Services, which finally gave him the opportunity to write. In 1974 Wurster helped found Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, along with Lloyd Johnson, Vic Coccimiglio, J. W. Jansen, and Dieter Weslowski. Meeting first in Wurster's house, then shifted to an open workshop at Lion Walk Performing Arts Center. When PPE began hosting public readings, one of their first readers was August Wilson.

The Exchange has had several locations over the years, including a long stint at City Books on East Carson, but Wurster soon found an apartment ("book-lined, art riddled") just off East Carson in Bedford Square, and has been a fixture there ever since.

Other forms of poetry activism have included teaching poetry classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, hosting a long series of Café Descartes symposia at City Books, organizing a variety of poetry reading series around the city, and managing the South Side Poetry Smorgasbord (part of the alliterative annual South Side Summer Street Spectacular), along with monthly poetry discussion groups in various locations around the city.

Wurster has explained that all these poetry opportunities are an essential addendum to the Exchange workshop setting. "It is important, at least for me, that the criticism of the poem not end when the workshop ends. We see one another throughout the month at various readings. That is one of the keys to a successful workshop. You need to have a relationship that extends beyond the workshop. No one wants to take criticism from someone who is little more than a stranger."

Honors
Pittsburgh Magazine 's Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award, 1996.

Pittsburgh Steak Company named a hot ham & American cheese sandwich after him.

Poetry
In his Mike James interview, Wurster explained that he likes to mix techniques. "I am interested in writing more than one way." Also, "I try to present a mystery in my poems and not solve the mystery."

Poet and critic Stuart Sheppard asserts that one of Wurster's strengths "is that he doesn't waste words, nor does he over-elucidate." With specific reference to Even Then, he called it "a refreshing departure from the current vogue of engagé poetry. This book has no agenda; it's simply poetry for poetry's sake. We are taken on a journey of moments - some sublime, some surreal - that comprise a life in which observation engenders revelation."

Reviewing the same collection, Jeanne Julian notes that Wurster's poems "exhibit the virtuosity of ... long experience--they elude categorization." She points to the scholarly references, "Yet, at the same time, Wurster is as inventive, ironic, and witty as a newer voice." She observes that the title poem and others "reawaken us to the power of brevity" while noting that "...Wurster is also adept at creating little sinister other-worlds. "In a Gray Coat," "The Hat," and "Country of Ghosts" are Kafka-esque. "The Windmill" reads like the opening of a Gothic novel."

Collections
The Cruelty of the Desert, Cottage Wordsmiths, Pittsburgh. (1989) ISBN: 9780920976593

The Snake Charmer's Daughter, Elemenope, Pittsburgh. (2000) ISBN: 9781885905758

The British Detective, Main Street Rag, Charlotte, NC. (2009) ISBN: 9781599481906

Even Then, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. (2019) ISBN: 9780822965817

Anthologies (as Co-Editor with Judith R. Robinson)
Along These Rivers, Quadrant Publishing, Pittsburgh. (2008) ISBN-10: 0980054508

The Brentwood Anthology, Nine Toes Press, San Pedro, CA. (2019) ISBN: 9781929878574