“I thought poets were all dead and white and men from England, and so I never thought I would be a poet,” Kwasny said.

Then she met Richard Hugo and took one of his classes at the University of Montana, and it changed her life.

“Richard Hugo had the same background as me … I realized I could write about my people with subjects I knew about,” Kwasny said.

She went on to publish a couple novels later in life, but went back to poetry because she felt she couldn’t express herself as well with literature.

“Poetry is a language for the interior life,” Kwasny said. “As human beings, if we’re not in touch with human life, we act like a mob instead of acting through our hearts. If we don’t have a sense of who we are, what we feel, what we dream about, all those things that are interior, we can be manipulated, but we also aren’t living our lives as human beings.”

Secondary education junior Mary Burson decided to come out to one of Kwasny’s events.

“I love poetry, and when I heard about Melissa Kwasny, I decided to check it out,” Burson said. “I thought she was great. I think it’s true — the way to win over a girl’s heart is through poetry.”

Kwasny said she prefers poetry because it is self-speaking.

“I feel like, in a novel, someone is telling a story,” Kwasny said. “We really feel a sense of our individual self with poetry. Poetry relies on an image to express the interior self; novels rely on the story.”

Anita Skeen, the director for the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities Center for Poetry, said she met Kwasny at an artist residency in Virginia and wanted her to speak at MSU.

“She’s a great poet and person,” Skeen said. “We’re really blessed to have her here.”
The sentiment is returned, Kwasny said.

“I’m thrilled to be here (at MSU),” Kwasny said. “It’s a great opportunity for me.”

She also said she would consider writing a poem about MSU.

“I think it would be (about) the trees — these bare trees and their striking sculpture,” Kwasny said.