![\"Me](\"https:\/\/www.guiseppegetto.com\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/LittleDevil.jpg\")
I have my M.F.A. in Poetry from California State University-Fresno. My most direct influences are Corrinne Clegg Hales<\/a>, Kobayashi Issa<\/a>, Philip Levine<\/a>, James Galvin<\/a>, Richard Hugo<\/a>, and Jack Gilbert<\/a>, among many others.<\/p>\nFor a living, I teach things that have nothing to do with poetry<\/a>.<\/p>\n People like to say art comes from suffering. I won\u2019t generalize, but most of my poems come out of hard experience. I\u2019ve never been interested in poetry that floats above everyday life or tries to escape it. I\u2019m more interested in work that stays close to how people actually live.<\/p>\n The people I grew up around worked with their bodies. They didn\u2019t have much money or protection. When you come from a working-class family, very little is guaranteed, not your health, not your safety, not even your own body. Long hours, dangerous work, isolation, and poverty leave marks. Those marks show up in my poems.<\/p>\n A lot of contemporary literature comes from places I didn\u2019t have access to. I don\u2019t begrudge that, but it isn\u2019t where I come from. I\u2019m interested in writing about ordinary people whose lives don\u2019t usually make it into books.<\/p>\n I care about clarity. I care about story. Even with two degrees in poetry, I often read literary magazines and feel lost. That may be my background talking, but I don\u2019t believe poetry needs to be unreadable to be serious.<\/p>\n Most poets who write about working-class life lean toward narrative, and so do I. Story is how people pass knowledge, history, and survival down. You don\u2019t need special training to understand it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m the only person in my family to become a college professor or a published poet, and probably the only one from my hometown. I didn\u2019t expect to end up here, and I doubt anyone else did either.<\/p>\n If you want to know more about my work, the best place to start is the poems themselves, many of which are available online for free<\/a>. If you\u2019re feeling generous, you can also order my chapbook<\/a> and see where all this led.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Footer Section” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”#22262d” custom_padding=”100px||100px|” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,1_3,1_3″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”#bcaca0″ custom_margin=”-10%|||” custom_padding=”70px|3%|70px|3%” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”” border_radii=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ box_shadow_horizontal=”0px” box_shadow_vertical=”35px” box_shadow_blur=”65px” box_shadow_color=”rgba(188,163,146,0.1)” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_blurb title=”Contact Me” url=”https:\/\/www.guiseppegetto.com\/poetry\/contact\/” use_icon=”on” font_icon=”||divi||400″ icon_color=”#ffffff” image_icon_background_color=”rgba(189,173,160,0)” image_icon_width=”32px” admin_label=”Contact Manager” _builder_version=”4.16″ header_font=”Abhaya Libre|700|||||||” header_text_color=”#ffffff” header_font_size=”24px” header_line_height=”1.2em” body_font=”Nunito||||||||” body_text_color=”#ffffff” body_font_size=”18px” image_icon_custom_padding=”25px|25px|25px|25px|false|false” text_orientation=”center” animation=”off” border_radii_image=”on|100%|100%|100%|100%” border_width_all_image=”3px” border_color_all_image=”#ffffff” icon_font_size=”32px” use_circle=”on” use_circle_border=”on” circle_border_color=”#ffffff” circle_color=”rgba(189,173,160,0)” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” image_icon_background_color__sticky_enabled=”#7EBEC5″ image_icon_background_color__sticky=”#7EBEC5″][\/et_pb_blurb][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My StoryI\u2019ve been writing poetry most of my life. It isn\u2019t my job, but it\u2019s been a constant. I was born and raised in rural Nevada, in a place shaped by above-ground nuclear testing, hard agricultural labor, and family systems that didn\u2019t work very well, including my own. That landscape, physical and social, is still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" Though poetry is definitely an avocation for me at this point, I have been writing poetry most of my life. Like many writers, I use art to process a difficult upbringing. I was born and raised in rural Nevada, a landscape littered with nuclear fallout from above ground atomic testing, violent cowboys, and dysfunctional family systems, including my own. This landscape is largely the palette I continue to use in most of my work even though I have lived outside of it for many years now.<\/p>\n I have my M.F.A. in Poetry from California State University-Fresno. My most direct influences are Corrinne Clegg Hales<\/a>, Kim Addonizio<\/a>, Matsuo Basho<\/a>, Kobayashi Issa<\/a>, Elizabeth Bishop<\/a>, Philip Levine<\/a>, James Galvin<\/a>, Richard Hugo<\/a>, and Jack Gilbert<\/a>, among many others.<\/p>\n Though it's very much a clich\u00e9 to claim that art comes from suffering, I can only speak to my own art, which has most often been inspired by some of my darkest moments. Though the literary world is filled with a kind of poetry that attempts to transcend the mundane realities of our frail, human existence, I've never been a huge fan of that kind of art. I think it does a disservice to the work-a-day people who actually live through history rather than philosophizing about it from a safe distance inside their luxury vehicles.<\/p>\n And that certainly describes the people I grew up around. When you are born to a working class family, nothing is guaranteed. Not your health, your well-being, nor even the sanctity of your own body. Poverty does terrible things to people, as does grueling, never-ending farm work and manual labor of other sorts, as does isolation from the resources that people in population centers have access to. Though some of the most decorated poets seem to have a direct pipeline to Yale and other Ivy League schools and their associated contests and publishing series, the rest of us are interested in capturing the lives of ordinary people that a lot of mainstream contemporary literature has ignored.<\/p>\n And at a certain point, those of us committed to immortalizing the people who history has largely forgotten realize that it's probably not fitting for us to create poetry that only about .01% of readers could ever possibly comprehend. I have two degrees in poetry, one of which is a terminal degree, and many times when leafing through a contemporary literary magazine I find myself completely bewildered by the writing I find there. Perhaps it is simply the working class kid in me rebelling at a kind of art that seems tied to the upper-middle-class lifestyle that has continued to elude me.<\/p>\n Regardless, I think most poets who choose the working class as their central theme tend toward a more accessible, narrative aesthetic. That is certainly the case with all the poets I linked to above as my core influences.<\/p>\n After all, story is a universal mode of communication that transcends history, language, and culture. If you want to have an experience with another human being that can bridge nearly any difference, try telling them a story. Even cultures that never developed a written alphabet have still recorded their history through stories passed down to each generation.<\/p>\n And that is certainly true in working class America where literacy rates and education levels typically fall well below the national average. I am certainly the only college professor<\/a> or published poet ever to come from my family system, and possibly even my entire hometown. And the obstacles I've faced to attain a modicum of recognition for my work... well, let's just say if I were a betting man, I wouldn't have laid odds on me making it to where I am today, and I don't think most would have.<\/p>\nPoetry From\u00a0the Working Class<\/h1>\n
Telling a Story<\/h1>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/guiseppegetto.com\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/side_profile_avatar-300x218.jpg\"){kind=avatar}
I currently reside in North Carolina with my wife Jessica and our cats Amy and Angie where I teach things that have nothing to do with poetry<\/a>. There is far less nuclear fallout in North Carolina and the cowboys are milder, but there are about the same amount of dysfunctional family systems.<\/p>\nPoetry From the Working Class<\/h1>\n
Telling a Story: Poetry Non-Poets Can Understand<\/h1>\n