Gail Goepfert

Gail Goepfert is an Associate Editor of RHINO Poetry.  Goepfert was born and raised in the Midwest states of Illinois and Ohio, from near the Piasa Bird along the bluffs of the Mississippi to the eagle-watch waters of the river near the Quad-Cities, from the Glass City, Toledo, Ohio. For many years, she's called the northwest suburbs of Chicago home.

Two of her poems rode PACE buses as part of the annual Poetry That Moves contest of Highland Park Poetry. She’s been a semi-finalist for Journal of Modern Poetry and Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest, and she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. A former student has set one of her poems to music. Her photographs appear online at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Olentangy Review, 3Elements Review, and in February 2015, one of her photographs appeared on the cover of Rattle. She received a month-long residency at Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois, in April 2014, and she spent time in Brockport, New York, studying Gilgamesh and its implications for the classroom thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities. You can find her online at gailgoepfert.com.  

Goepfert has spent most of her adult life teaching--junior high, online for two colleges, and tutoring.  She's also taught poetry writing to students ages 10 to 80.  She leads workshops in the Chicago area.  She's extremely glad that poetry found her when it did.