Stephen Lewandowski has lived most of his life in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, working professionally and as a volunteer for many environmental groups of the area for over forty years. He has been employed as a conservation technician and educator, a watershed analyst and consultant, and has participated in the organization of such groups as the Finger Lakes Land Trust, Coalition for Hemlock and Canadice Lakes, Ganondagan State Historic Site, Lake Ontario Coastal Initiative and the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Task Force. He considers his poetry as “the other side” of the same coin and loves the land from which his poems have sprung.
Since 1974 Lewandowski has published sixteen small and large books of poetry and edited other literary projects for White Pine Press, but he has never seen poetry as his career. His poems and essays have appeared in regional and national environmental and literary journals. Lewandowski believes poets over the ages have been engaged in a cooperative venture so he enters no current competitions for prizes. He reads and studies poetry for understanding and enjoyment but thinks that while the craft of writing poetry can be learned, he’s skeptical that poetry can be taught. He believes each poet searches for his or her authentic voice while listening to hear other poets’ voices.
He was a student of Howard Nemerov at Washington University, a graduate assistant to the philosophical essayist Willian Gass, and later studied folklore with Louis Jones, author of Things That Go Bump in the Night.
Lewandowski’s most recent books include Under Foot (Mayapple Press), Last Settler in the Finger Lakes (Foothills Publishing), I Swear (Bullhead Books), Hard Work in Low Places (Tiger Bark Press), and, now, Ground Truth, Poems from the Field (Cayuga Lake Books). His manuscript of Local Life, a Close Observation of the Finger Lakes seeks a publisher.
Check out Ground Truth: Poems from the Field on Amazon by clicking the cover below!
Cayuga Lake Books 