Joe Wenderoth

Joe Wenderoth is an American poet. He has published seven books: five books of poetry, an epistolary novel, and a book of essays. His work has been published in Harpers, The Nation, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Best American Poetry 2007, Best American Essays 2008, Poetry 180, The Next American Essay, The Best American Poems: From Poe to Present, The Body Electric, The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology, and American Poetry: Next Generation.

Background and early life

Joe Wenderoth was born on June 29, 1966, in Baltimore, MD to his father Joe, Sr. and mother Kathryn Wenderoth. His father was a systems analyst and his mother was a nurse. He attended Loyola University Maryland, to obtain his Bachelor's degree in 1988. At New York University, he participated in a graduate study before deciding to earn his M.F.A. at Warren Wilson College in 1993. Wenderoth's poetry aligns with themes of absurdity, vulgarity, and satire. His work has been called gritty, irreverent and witty by Publishers Weekly, often aided by his use of prose. He often utilizes these themes to discuss heavy topics of societal issues, faults within capitalist America and bureaucracy, and mental illness. His work within the Inscription of the Seizure State is also credited at GIGANTIC magazine for “creating a new culture-agon that aims to unmire itself of poetry and convey how the poetic manifests itself in the SEIZURE of ourselves.” He often comments on the human experience, utilizing compressed vignettes about seemingly minor or preposterous issues that reveal desperate humanity. The Boston Review comments on his writing style, that it champions ridiculous possibilities of change that deride the United States culpabilities and hypocrisies In a review of Wenderoth’s poetry, poet Calvin Bedient commented that it "makes quick cuts in the meat of the ordinary, which is the meat of the impossible."