Wendy Vardaman
Poetry
Madison, WI
Wendy Vardaman, PhD, has a day job as a digital media specialist—managing websites, editing, and visualizing data—and holds degrees in structural engineering, English, and graphic design. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Obstructed View (Fireweed 2009), Reliquary of Debt (Lit Fest Press 2015), and the chapbook (with Sarah Sadie), Rules of (dis)engagement, or Dubious perFormances (Dancing Girl Press 2016). A new chapbook, thread me an exit, is forthcoming in 2025. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals and projects, including Poem-A-Day on Poets.org.
In addition to writing poetry and essays about poetry, her creative practice includes editing, illustration, printmaking, and design. She has a lifelong love of art and volunteers for arts organizations as a designer, artist, and editor. With Sarah Sadie she published Verse Wisconsin from 2009 to 2013, created a micro-press, co-edited two anthologies, and served as Madison, Wisconsin poets laureate (2012-2015).
She creates occasional artist book mock-ups for her own poetry as well as broadsides, poetry cards, posters, and other ephemera working with mixed media, monoprinting, letterpress, and collage. Her artwork has appeared on the cover of numerous anthologies and poetry collections.
In 2024, she received the Dick Scuglik Memorial Fellowship and residency for writing about art from Write On, Door County.
She lives in Madison with her family, including two rescue dogs, and is currently working on at least two full-length books of poetry.