Joseph Radke is a poet living and writing in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley. He grew up in northern Wisconsin as the youngest child (of eight) of a paper mill worker and church secretary. He earned a BS in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA in American studies at Baylor University. He received his PhD in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was a Chancellor Fellow.

After a long hiatus, he returned to serious creative writing late in 2023. His poems have appeared, and are forthcoming, in numerous national literary journals, including The Journal, Copper Nickel, Boulevard, Poetry East, Natural Bridge, Southern Poetry Review, Permafrost, Bicoastal Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and The Shore. The podcast Landward: Readings of Place and Season will feature two of Radke’s poems reflecting on the landscapes of his childhood. His work has won an Academy of American Poets University Prize and a Beall Poetry Festival Award. His manuscript is in search of a publisher.

When not writing in downtown Appleton’s coffee shops, he can be found scaling the hidden mountains of Wisconsin.

Picture of the Poet

Selected Publications

  • “When Your Back Ache Returns, We Visit a Specialist,” Bellevue Literary Review, Issue 48 — Spring 2025 (forthcoming)

  • “The Same Dog” and “Another Morning Poem,” Southern Poetry Review, Volume 62, Issue 2 — Spring 2025 (forthcoming)

  • “Eyewitness Testimony,” Packingtown Review, Volume 23 — Spring 2025 (forthcoming)

  • “La Belle Époque,” Bicoastal Review, Issue 8 — Winter 2024/2025

  • "You Can’t Separate Absence from Presence by Distance Alone,” The Shore, Issue 24 — Winter 2024

  • “Excerpts from a Calendar of Nights We Didn’t Meet (#1),” Permafrost, Issue 45.2 — Winter 2024

  • “Later That Evening,” Harpur Palate, Issue 23.1 — Spring/Summer 2024

  • “Kid Elektra,” New York Quarterly, Issue 66 — Summer 2010

  • “Rio de los Brazos de Dios” and “Even Misunderstanding is a Form of Understanding,” Epiphany, Issue 7 — Spring/Summer 2010

  • “On the Care and Feeding of Avocados” and “Back Beat,” Verse Wisconsin, Issue 102 — Spring 2010

  • “slow onset of stigmata” and “Night Without,” Copper Nickel, Issue 13 — Winter 2010

  • “Meditation on East Jarvis,” The Journal, Issue 33.1 — Spring/Summer 2009

  • “We Only Know It the Second Time,” Faultline, Volume 18 — Spring 2009

  • “Four Pests,” dislocate, a minnesota journal of writing and art, Issue 4 — Fall 2008

  • “Chances of Precipitation,” Natural Bridge, Number 19 — Spring 2008

  • “How I Came to Touch You Again” and “Will at Bay,” Versal — Spring 2007

  • “This Much for Sure” and “Ice Forms on the Milwaukee River,” Boulevard — Fall 2006

  • “What To Do,” Versal — Summer 2006

  • “Sacred Rites of Burial” and “Left Over,” Poetry East, Number 53 — Fall 2004

  • “The Ice Fishermen of Oconto Falls,” Sojourn — Summer 2003

  • “Unbound,” The Texas Observer — April 13, 2001