Diversity Rules Magazine

west of American poetry' to includes voices like Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. Check it out. When I taught a course tled Outlaw Poets I used this collec on to inspire an -establishment juices to flow." Nielsen considers Face Up to be a collec on of risks. "Lots of pieces within the collec on are snippets shared with the reader to serve, if desired, to lend a voice of advocacy for others living with disabili es, either hidden or visible," she said. "Fists for Hands is my first disclosure, followed by Last Call for De- pression, Pink Plugs, Reading Lips, Minnesota Heat, Profile of a Poet are just a few I'll men on from the collec on that are risks that needed to be wri en." And Nielsen indeed takes risks. In Pink Plugs she re- calls ge ng her first pair of hearing aids. "I'd paid the price in the '70s by hearing Robert Plant say live at the St. Paul Civic Center, 'St. Paul, you're much too much," she writes. "But I couldn't much hear that now, so I went to Seral, at the Como Clinic in St. Paul. St. Paul, who was struck blind for three days un l surrendering to the messiah. Two weeks later I went back to see Seral and to pick up my hear- ing aids." Nielsen reports that some of her students iden fy as depressed, which she thinks is common for people in the arts. This has opened opportuni es for her to talk about her depression and her coping mechanisms. "Of course, my essen al coping mechanism is my wri ng, some that are s ll hidden from others," she said. She added that disabled people work hard to be what is considered "normal." "And what I mean by that is we work hard for vali- da on un l we realize that the most important vali- da on comes from within," she said. "But we need to reach out to others at mes as well. If you listen carefully to yourself each night before you dri off to sleep, your soul will guide you." Face Up: A Collec on of Outlaw Poems by Suzanne Nielsen can be purchased in Kindle and paperback edi ons at Amazon: Endorsements "Face Up: A Collec on of Outlaw Poems is a power- ful tes mony of survival. It's a force to reckon with, deserves to be in any library strong in contemporary poetry and women's wri ngs, and ideally will assume its place of power in book club discussion circles. There, poetry can take on a new role as a major influence in and focus on living a passionate, rebellious life that eschews the mundane." D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review "There's a certain hard-bi en, darkly humorous sort of tone that seems to be unique to St. Paul na ves, and Suzanne Nielsen has mastered it. The autobio- graphical poems in Face Up are though ul, asser ve and funny, as bracing as a free fall down the Ramsey Street hill without brakes, and as welcome as run- ning into a favorite friend at the end of an eastside bar." Andy Sturdevant, Co-Author, Closing Time: Saloons, Taverns, Dives, and Watering Holes of the Twin Cit- ies "Face Up exists where we live and dream and tell our friends about the harmony and discourse of our days and nights. It is not only what we all should read but what, if we allow it to, reads us." Akmed Khalifa, author of The Camel's Shadow Has Four Humps and City Suite: A Collec on of Short Stories "Suzanne Nielsen's poems are peopled with wry survivors a ending to their lives with purpose and humor. In these poems of tenderness and grit, sor- row is always accompanied by wonder." Jacqueline Berger, Author ofThe Gi That Arrives Broken and The Day You Miss Your Exit "This collec on treads a curious step between the edge of Midwestern myth and history, secret pro- fundi es and the everyday coffee cups worthy of verse. Strolling through the moonglow, blue noise and ques ons of true iden es and the wisdom of a tree house, this is an ink-stained blast of wonder and inquiry sure to spark delight…" Bryan Thao Worra, Lao Minnesotan Poet Laureate and Author of DEMONSTRA and Before We Remem- ber We Dream "While the poems in Face Up don't shy from the grit—we encounter doomed rela onships, PTSD, and addic on—it's not all hopeless. We empathize with the sha ered and become par cipants. These are poems of a life lived." Flower Conroy, Author of The Awful Suicidal Swans and A Sen mental Hairpin Diversity Rules Magazine | July 2023| 5

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