Joseph Featherstone

professor emeritus, Michigan State

Joseph Featherstone's first full-length book of poetry, *Brace's Cove*, shows that he has developed from a prose writer, journalist, and critic into a terrific poet. For all the close focus of the individual poems, *Brace's Cove* expresses an entire contemporary American life over the last 20 years. The collection's title, an Atlantic cove to the north of Gloucester, Massachusetts, points to Featherstone's grounding in particulars, especially his painterly love affair with landscape, nature, and the animal world. Featherstone is that great rarity, a poet completely accessible to new readers of poetry who also gets the highest praise from veteran poets who prize craft and workmanship. Featherstone is professor of teacher education at Michigan State University. He was for years faculty co-leader of one team in the MSU teacher certification program. He is the author of *Dear Josie, Witnessing the Hopes and Failures of Democratic Education* (TC Press, 2003), and co-editor with others of *Transforming Teacher Education, Reflections from the Field* (Harvard Education Press, 2007).