Writer Skilled at Addressing Diversity of Topics
March 5th, 2025
October 30, 2024 7:52 AM
NORFOLK, Neb. – Some people are multi-talented.
Jim Reese is an accomplished poet and writer, who has been widely published and has spoken at hundreds of venues from prisons to classrooms. He has a keen sense of humor and performed in a band when he was younger.
Some of his talents were evident when he spoke as the second of this year’s Visiting Writers Series writers at Northeast Community College.
The associate professor of English and director of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour at Mount Marty University in Yankton, S.D., recalled fondly when he regularly played in Norfolk with a band with “five other guys with enormous egos.”
“We always played the Knights of Columbus Hall (in Norfolk). We packed that place. We were pretty famous at the Stanton County Fairgrounds too,” Reese said.
The band, Glass Bottom Isle, included Wayne State College students. They played around the Midwest and the group recorded several original songs before eventually breaking up. But on Thursday, Oct. 17, Reese was mostly at Northeast to read from his poetry and discuss writing.
His poem, “The Selfie in Me,” included a range of topics from selfies, taking photos of his own “undercarriage,” running, COVID-19, and a testicular cancer scare. Appearing at ease in front of an audience from college students to retirees at Union 73, Reese discussed some difficult topics.
The ease and humor with which he dealt with the subjects made it easy for the audience, which seemed to be hanging on his words and eager to hear what subject would be covered next.
Other topics included working as a student reporter at Wayne State College, sexual assault, murder, reading poetry at prisons, rehabilitating prisoners, and the time when he interviewed Adam Sandler as a 20-year-old.
Sandler began as a writer before his brothers encouraged him to become a comedian. Reese mentioned that Sandler also discussed Chis Farley and writing, which made an impression on Reese.
“That was an interesting moment because he took the time to talk to anyone who was serious about writing, and I’m happy to do that too,” Reese said.
Reese was introduced by Bonnie Johnson-Bartee, Northeast English instructor and Visiting Writers Series coordinator. Many of her students attended the event and visited with Reese afterward.
Reese speaks throughout the country on the repercussions of crime, the benefits of writing for wellness in a correctional environment and connecting with people in marginal, non-traditional spaces.
His books include These Trespasses (The Backwaters Press 2005), ghost on 3rd (New York Quarterly Books 2010), Really Happy! (NYQ Books 2014) Dancing Room Only—New and Selected Poems (NYQ Books 2024). His book of nonfiction, Bone Chalk, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2020. His new nonfiction book Coming to a Neighborhood Near You—the Business and Repercussions of Crime and Punishment is forthcoming from Potomac Books at the University of Nebraska Press (Fall 2025).
Jim Reese Returns to Norfolk
Jim Reese, who teaches at Mount Marty University and whose honors include a Distinguished Teaching Award from Mount Marty University and First Place Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, speaks at Northeast Community College as part of the Visiting Writers Series. (Northeast Community College)
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Read full article here: https://northeast.edu/news/article/5570-writer-skilled-at-addressing-diversity-of-topics
