Rob's Poetry
NEW CHAPBOOK
Shelter in Place. Finishing Line Press, 2022.
Available for pre-order here: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/shelter-in-place-by-rob-hardy/
Publication Date: February 18, 2022
–Cathy Wurzer, Morning Edition Host, Minnesota Public Radio, and Founder of the End in Mind Project
When the future, especially under the influence of pandemic, “feels like unclaimed baggage,” Rob Hardy shows us “it’s hard to let go of absence.” In this lovely small collection of poems, dread is the catalyst for new life, and absence is metamorphosed into the new small miracles present all around.
–Emilio DeGrazia, author of What Trees Know
Slender in size, Hardy’s new collection is weighty in its felicitous and fearless examination of the present moment. Shelter in Place offers “singing in the wake of the storm/a fugue of chromatic juncos,” which transitions to the beautiful fragility of aftermath, when “winter’s white tune/is taken up by the wild plum.” Hardy uses elegance and restraint to rein in a wild inventiveness of observations, at once sensitive and learned, about human nature and the natural world. Shelter in Place will long delight readers with its lucidity, poignancy, humor, and humanity.
–Leslie Schultz, author of Concertina
POETRY COLLECTION
Domestication: Collected Poems 1996-2016. Shipwreckt Books/Up on Big Rock Poetry Series, 2017. Available at Content in Northfield.
AWARDS
Rob's poem "Letter" won the 2021 50/50 Contest from Third Wednesday.
Domestication: Collected Poems 1996-2016. Shipwreckt Books/Up on Big Rock Poetry Series, 2017. Available at Content in Northfield.
AWARDS
Rob's poem "Letter" won the 2021 50/50 Contest from Third Wednesday.
Rob's poem "Jane Austen's Toes" was chosen by poet Dorianne Laux for inclusion in Best of the Net 2008.
Rob's poetry chapbook, The Collecting Jar, won the 2004 Grayson Books Poetry Chapbook Competition.
NORTHFIELD POET LAUREATE
In August 2016, Rob was selected as the first Poet Laureate of Northfield, Minnesota. He served in that position through June 2023.
SIDEWALK POETRY
Four of Rob's poems are stamped into sidewalks in downtown Northfield as part of the Northfield Arts and Culture Commission's Sidewalk Poetry project.
CHORAL MUSIC (LYRICS)
Rob has collaborated with American-Finnish Composer Alex Freeman on several choral works: Sidereus Nuncius (2021), A Field of Stars (2021), Light (2022), and Ghost Light: A Choral Symphony in Three Parts (2022).
ORESTEIA
"The script is taut and lyrical and something 21st century Americans can understand."
—Emily Gustafson
Aeschylus, The Oresteia, An Adaptation by Rob Hardy. Published by Hero Now Theatre.
Rob's adaptation of Aeschylus's Oresteia was performed in the Weitz Center for Creativity Theater at Carleton College in May 2012. The show ran for five sold-out performances, and was reviewed by Eric Dugdale (Gustavus Adolphus College) for Didaskalia: The Journal for Ancient Performance.
A new production of the Oresteia was staged by Hero Now Theater in September 2016, in Zoran Mojsilov's sculpture garden in northeast Minneapolis.
"In Domestication, Collected Poems 1996-2016, Rob Hardy brings together the wide range of gifts that place him among the few whose common touch makes them exceptional. In work that is at once accessible, enjoyable, and wonderfully well-made, Hardy shows, without pretentious display, that poetry is not an outsider’s cryptic game. His poems demonstrate what Henry David Thoreau teaches: that profundity may best be found in simplicity. Hardy gracefully combines his deep knowledge of the ancient classics and his wide interest in scientific learning with his first-hand experience of nature and human relationships. When 'An early thaw tempts the earth into expectation,' he writes, 'birds modulate into spring.' As we read his work we are modulated into the renewals our varied seasons of life require. For good reasons Hardy was appointed official Poet Laureate of the city of Northfield, Minnesota." (Emilio DeGrazia, former Poet Laureate of Winona, Minnesota, and Minnesota Book Award winner)
"Rob Hardy's poems reacquaint readers with the archetypal depth of the familiar." (Scott Slovic, University of Nevada, Reno, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment).
"Hardy writes his poems as though he is one with nature, and absorbing every little sound and flutter around him." (Introduction to Rural and Regional Studies, Southwest State University).
"If I lived in a world without Billy Collins, you would be my favorite poet. Fortunately, I live in a world with both of my favorite poets." (A reader).
"Rob Hardy's 'Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program' is a funny and sympathetic look at both a mysterious sea creature and the human condition..." (Literary Magazine Review, December 15, 2006)
PUBLISHED POEMS
“Postcard to Crawford, Texas, from the Les Cheneaux Islands, Michigan,” Water-Stone Review (2006). Print.
“Old Memorial Field,” ReNews 1.1 (June 2006). Print.
“Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program,” Red Cedar Review 41 (Spring 2006). Print.
“Fabric,” “Daywings,” “William Cullen Bryant,” ISLE 13.1 (Winter 2006). Print.
“Learning Curve,” The Teacher’s Voice 1.3 (2005). Print.
“In a Japanese Room,” English Journal 95.3 (January 2004). Print.
“Falling,” in Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT: Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2003. Print.
“Lodestone” and “Substitute Teaching,” English Journal 92.1 (September 2002). Print.
“Small World,” Black Bear Review 34 (Spring 2002). Honorable Mention, 2001 Annual Poetry Competition. Print.
“Food for the World,” reprinted in Whole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice 10 (2002). Print.
“Falling,” in To Love One Another: Poems Celebrating Marriage, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT, Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2002. Print.
“Index,” The Comstock Review vol. 15, no. 2 (Winter 2002). Finalist, 2001 Comstock Review Poetry Contest. Print.
“Suppose,” “consider the trees,” and “The Formation of Alfisols,” Re-Imagining 30 (February 2002). Print.
“Essentialist Poem,” The Comstock Review 15.1 (Spring/Summer 2001). Print.
“Girl’s Night Out,” “River Bend,” “The Sacred Oaks,” “Entomology (Will’s Poem),” “You Were Never in the Army,” “Morning,” “Marjorie Rice,” “Instructions for Silent Prayer,” in 33 Minnesota Poets, ed. Monica and Emilio DeGrazia. Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 2000. Print.
“Morning,” Black Bear Review 30 (Spring/Summer 2000). Second Prize, 1999 Annual Poetry Competition. Print.
“Essential Love,” in Essential Love: Poems About Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT: Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2000. Print.
“The Kindergarten Bus,” Hiram Poetry Review 62 (Fall 1999). Print.
“Instructions for Silent Prayer,” The Comstock Review, 13.2 (Fall/Winter 1999). Finalist, 1999 Comstock Review Poetry Contest. Print.
“Aeneas,” The Comstock Review 13.2 (Fall/Winter 1999). Print.
“Beethoven’s Seventh, 1978,” North Coast Review (Summer 1999). Print.
“Box Elder,” North Coast Review (Summer 1999). Print.
“Cicadas,” The Christian Century (August 18, 1999). Print.
“The slaughter of the innocents,” The Christian Century (December 9, 1998). Print.
“Food for the World,” The Black Bear Review 27 (Fall/Winter 1998). Print.
“Naturalization,” 100 Words 5.6 (April 1998). Print.
“Packing the Creche,” The Christian Century (February 25, 1998). Print.
“Domestication,” Minnesota Monthly (April 1997). Print.
—Emily Gustafson
Aeschylus, The Oresteia, An Adaptation by Rob Hardy. Published by Hero Now Theatre.
Rob's adaptation of Aeschylus's Oresteia was performed in the Weitz Center for Creativity Theater at Carleton College in May 2012. The show ran for five sold-out performances, and was reviewed by Eric Dugdale (Gustavus Adolphus College) for Didaskalia: The Journal for Ancient Performance.
A new production of the Oresteia was staged by Hero Now Theater in September 2016, in Zoran Mojsilov's sculpture garden in northeast Minneapolis.
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REVIEWS
"In Domestication, Collected Poems 1996-2016, Rob Hardy brings together the wide range of gifts that place him among the few whose common touch makes them exceptional. In work that is at once accessible, enjoyable, and wonderfully well-made, Hardy shows, without pretentious display, that poetry is not an outsider’s cryptic game. His poems demonstrate what Henry David Thoreau teaches: that profundity may best be found in simplicity. Hardy gracefully combines his deep knowledge of the ancient classics and his wide interest in scientific learning with his first-hand experience of nature and human relationships. When 'An early thaw tempts the earth into expectation,' he writes, 'birds modulate into spring.' As we read his work we are modulated into the renewals our varied seasons of life require. For good reasons Hardy was appointed official Poet Laureate of the city of Northfield, Minnesota." (Emilio DeGrazia, former Poet Laureate of Winona, Minnesota, and Minnesota Book Award winner)
"Rob Hardy's poems reacquaint readers with the archetypal depth of the familiar." (Scott Slovic, University of Nevada, Reno, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment).
"Hardy writes his poems as though he is one with nature, and absorbing every little sound and flutter around him." (Introduction to Rural and Regional Studies, Southwest State University).
"If I lived in a world without Billy Collins, you would be my favorite poet. Fortunately, I live in a world with both of my favorite poets." (A reader).
"Rob Hardy's 'Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program' is a funny and sympathetic look at both a mysterious sea creature and the human condition..." (Literary Magazine Review, December 15, 2006)
"Last Rights," Glassworks (Fall 2025). Online and print.
"Prompt" and "Easter to Pentecost," Willows Wept Review (Fall 2025). Online and print.
"Coneflowers," 24th Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration. Red Wing Arts. 2025. Print.
"In Passing," Rockvale Review 12 (May 2024). Online.
"Prairie Smoke," Midwest Quarterly (Fall 2023). Print.
"Innocently Here." 22nd Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration. Red Wing Arts. 2023. Print.
"Sparrows," Willows Wept Review (Fall 2022). Print.
"Stinkweed," 21st Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration. Red Wing Arts. 2022. Print.
“God Wink,” Image Journal 114 (Fall 2022). Print.
“Refusal of Care” and “Bloom,” Willows Wept Review (Fall 2021). Print/Online.
“Letter” and “Wild Onion,” Third Wednesday (Winter 2021). Print/Online.
“Refusal of Care” and “Bloom,” Willows Wept Review (Fall 2021). Print/Online.
“Letter” and “Wild Onion,” Third Wednesday (Winter 2021). Print/Online.
"Prairie Tale." 20th Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration Chapbook. Red Wing Arts. 2021. Print.
“Covid-19 Variations” and “Grounded,” Lost Lake Folk Opera (September 2020). Print.
“Shelter in Place” and “Coda,” Willows Wept Review 17 (Summer 2020). Print/Online.
“The Stump.” 19th Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration Chapbook. Red Wing Arts. 2020. Print.
“Crossing the Delaware,” Poems from the Lockdown, ed. Trevor Maynard (Willowdown Books 2020). Print.
“Icicles” and “Floodplain Forest,” Third Wednesday (Summer 2019). Print/Online.
“The Arc” and “My Mother’s Pussy Hat,” Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, ed. Ron Riekki and Andrea Scarpino (Michigan State University Press 2019). Print.
“Jane Austen’s House at Chawton,” “Reading Rebecca, Far from Home,” and “Light,” Lost Lake Folk Opera 5.1 (Spring/Summer 2018). Print.
“Phrasebook,” Ergon: Greek/American Arts and Letters (May 2018.) Online.
“Good Friday Walk” and “The Former State Demographer Presents Ten-Year Enrollment Projections for the Public Schools,” Poetic Strokes. SELCO, 2015. Print.
“Worm” and “Georgic,” IthacaLit 14 (Winter 2015). Online.
“Agnostic Psalm,” The Whirlwind Review 6 (2014). Online.
“Essential Love,” reprinted in Jane Hunter, M.D., The Well-Versed Parent. Ashland, Oregon: Wellstone Press, 2014. Print.
“Falling,” reprinted in Carley Roney, ed. The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2013. Print.
“Bluestem,” Thirty Two 5 (Spring 2014). Print.
“A Typical Poem,” Red Cedar (2013). Print.
“Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program,” Red Cedar Review 46 (Spring 2011). Retrospective “best of” issue. Print.
“Nest,” West Branch 68 (Spring/Summer 2011). Print.
“The Acts of the Apostles” and “Parallel Universe,” Green Blade: The Magazine of the Rural America Writers’ Center (Winter 2008-2009). Print.
“Fudgesicle,” in Holly Hughes, ed., Beyond Forgetting: Poems and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009. Print.
“To the Daughter I Never Had,” Rattle (Winter 2007). Print.
“Death of the Waxwings,” Out of Line (Spring 2007). Print.
“Jane Austen’s Toes,” Apple Valley Review (Fall 2007). Online. Included in Best of the Net 2008.
“Mark Twain and Dorothy Quick Sit for Photographs, 1907,” Apple Valley Review (Fall 2006). Online.
“Covid-19 Variations” and “Grounded,” Lost Lake Folk Opera (September 2020). Print.
“Shelter in Place” and “Coda,” Willows Wept Review 17 (Summer 2020). Print/Online.
“The Stump.” 19th Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration Chapbook. Red Wing Arts. 2020. Print.
“Crossing the Delaware,” Poems from the Lockdown, ed. Trevor Maynard (Willowdown Books 2020). Print.
“Icicles” and “Floodplain Forest,” Third Wednesday (Summer 2019). Print/Online.
“The Arc” and “My Mother’s Pussy Hat,” Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, ed. Ron Riekki and Andrea Scarpino (Michigan State University Press 2019). Print.
“Jane Austen’s House at Chawton,” “Reading Rebecca, Far from Home,” and “Light,” Lost Lake Folk Opera 5.1 (Spring/Summer 2018). Print.
“Phrasebook,” Ergon: Greek/American Arts and Letters (May 2018.) Online.
“Good Friday Walk” and “The Former State Demographer Presents Ten-Year Enrollment Projections for the Public Schools,” Poetic Strokes. SELCO, 2015. Print.
“Worm” and “Georgic,” IthacaLit 14 (Winter 2015). Online.
“Agnostic Psalm,” The Whirlwind Review 6 (2014). Online.
“Essential Love,” reprinted in Jane Hunter, M.D., The Well-Versed Parent. Ashland, Oregon: Wellstone Press, 2014. Print.
“Falling,” reprinted in Carley Roney, ed. The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2013. Print.
“Bluestem,” Thirty Two 5 (Spring 2014). Print.
“A Typical Poem,” Red Cedar (2013). Print.
“Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program,” Red Cedar Review 46 (Spring 2011). Retrospective “best of” issue. Print.
“Nest,” West Branch 68 (Spring/Summer 2011). Print.
“The Acts of the Apostles” and “Parallel Universe,” Green Blade: The Magazine of the Rural America Writers’ Center (Winter 2008-2009). Print.
“Fudgesicle,” in Holly Hughes, ed., Beyond Forgetting: Poems and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009. Print.
“To the Daughter I Never Had,” Rattle (Winter 2007). Print.
“Death of the Waxwings,” Out of Line (Spring 2007). Print.
“Jane Austen’s Toes,” Apple Valley Review (Fall 2007). Online. Included in Best of the Net 2008.
“Mark Twain and Dorothy Quick Sit for Photographs, 1907,” Apple Valley Review (Fall 2006). Online.
“Postcard to Crawford, Texas, from the Les Cheneaux Islands, Michigan,” Water-Stone Review (2006). Print.
“Old Memorial Field,” ReNews 1.1 (June 2006). Print.
“Midlife Crisis While Watching a Nature Program,” Red Cedar Review 41 (Spring 2006). Print.
“Fabric,” “Daywings,” “William Cullen Bryant,” ISLE 13.1 (Winter 2006). Print.
“Learning Curve,” The Teacher’s Voice 1.3 (2005). Print.
“In a Japanese Room,” English Journal 95.3 (January 2004). Print.
“Falling,” in Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT: Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2003. Print.
“Lodestone” and “Substitute Teaching,” English Journal 92.1 (September 2002). Print.
“Small World,” Black Bear Review 34 (Spring 2002). Honorable Mention, 2001 Annual Poetry Competition. Print.
“Food for the World,” reprinted in Whole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice 10 (2002). Print.
“Falling,” in To Love One Another: Poems Celebrating Marriage, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT, Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2002. Print.
“Index,” The Comstock Review vol. 15, no. 2 (Winter 2002). Finalist, 2001 Comstock Review Poetry Contest. Print.
“Suppose,” “consider the trees,” and “The Formation of Alfisols,” Re-Imagining 30 (February 2002). Print.
“Essentialist Poem,” The Comstock Review 15.1 (Spring/Summer 2001). Print.
“Girl’s Night Out,” “River Bend,” “The Sacred Oaks,” “Entomology (Will’s Poem),” “You Were Never in the Army,” “Morning,” “Marjorie Rice,” “Instructions for Silent Prayer,” in 33 Minnesota Poets, ed. Monica and Emilio DeGrazia. Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 2000. Print.
“Morning,” Black Bear Review 30 (Spring/Summer 2000). Second Prize, 1999 Annual Poetry Competition. Print.
“Essential Love,” in Essential Love: Poems About Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons, ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. W. Hartford, CT: Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2000. Print.
“The Kindergarten Bus,” Hiram Poetry Review 62 (Fall 1999). Print.
“Instructions for Silent Prayer,” The Comstock Review, 13.2 (Fall/Winter 1999). Finalist, 1999 Comstock Review Poetry Contest. Print.
“Aeneas,” The Comstock Review 13.2 (Fall/Winter 1999). Print.
“Beethoven’s Seventh, 1978,” North Coast Review (Summer 1999). Print.
“Box Elder,” North Coast Review (Summer 1999). Print.
“Cicadas,” The Christian Century (August 18, 1999). Print.
“The slaughter of the innocents,” The Christian Century (December 9, 1998). Print.
“Food for the World,” The Black Bear Review 27 (Fall/Winter 1998). Print.
“Naturalization,” 100 Words 5.6 (April 1998). Print.
“Packing the Creche,” The Christian Century (February 25, 1998). Print.
“Domestication,” Minnesota Monthly (April 1997). Print.
