About

Thom Tammaro (pronounced TAM-a-row) was born and raised in the heart of the steel valley of western Pennsylvania. He retired in 2017, after thirty-four years of teaching at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he was Professor of English and co-founder and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program. In 2001, he was named a Roland and Beth Dille Distinguished
Faculty Lecturer. He lives in Moorhead, MN.

Featured Work

Aurora

April 1, 2026
NDSU Press

from the Acknowledgments:

"I have always taken to heart Sarah Orne Jewett’s writing advice to
Willa Cather: “. . . you must find your own quiet center of life, and
write from that to the world.” Gathering work for a new collection
of my own poems, I noticed how they clustered around the places
where I had lived and worked for most of my professional career.
I have had the good fortune of living the last fifty years of my life
in Kansas, then Indiana, then Minnesota, then North Dakota,
and then back to Minnesota, with brief detours in Nebraska and
Winnipeg, Manitoba—most of the moves prompted by career
changes in academia. For AURORA, I have gathered poems that
were conceived, born, raised, and sent out into the world from
these times and places. Looking at these poems from the arc of my
writing life, I realize how much they are “image driven.” I suspect
this has something to do with the way in which I’ve grown to
write over the years. The notebooks that I carry are mostly filled
with words and phrases quickly jotted down for future reference. I
also engage in an exercise I call “sensory inventory,” whereby
I list words or phrases of the things I see, hear, smell, touch, or
taste. Later, when I return to my notebooks, some of those images
find their way into poems. Seasonal names and references often
appear in poems. Perhaps I unconsciously learned this from the
haiku poets?"

Published by North Dakota State University Press (2026)

Other Works

  • Invisible World: Fifty Tiny Poems of Walt Whitman (Red Dragonfly Press)

    2022

  • Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan, co-editor with Alan Davis (New Rivers Press, 2018)

    2018

  • 23 Poems (Red Dragonfly Press)

    2016

  • Visiting Dr. Williams: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of William Carlos Williams. Co-edited with Sheila Coghill (University of Iowa Press)

    2011

  • 31 Mornings in December (Red Dragonfly Press)

    2009

  • To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present. Co-edited with Joyce Sutphen and Connie Wanek (New Rivers Press)

    2006

  • Visiting Frost: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Robert Frost. Co-edited with Sheila Coghill (University of Iowa Press)

    2005

  • Visiting Walt: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Walt Whitman. Co-edited with Sheila Coghill (University of Iowa Press)

    2003

  • Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson. Co-edited with Sheila Coghill. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press.

    2000

  • L´Emigrazione Molisana E La Condizione Degli Umli. Per Una Letture della poesia di Thom Tammaro. a cura di Maria Grazia Tagliaferri. Sepino (CB), Italy: Comune di Sepino. Translations from essays and poems.

    1999

  • When the Italians Came to My Home Town. Granite Falls, MN: Spoon River Poetry Press

    1995

  • Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest. Co-edited with Mark Vinz. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Anthology of essays by sixteen writers from the Upper Midwest.

    1995

  • Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest. Co-edited with Mark Vinz. Poetry, Fiction, Essays. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.

    1993

  • Remembering James Wright by Robert Bly. Edited and Introduced. St. Paul: Ally Press.

    1991

  • Stirring the Deep: The Poetry of Mark Vinz. Editor. “Midwest Writers and Their Work, No. 1.” Essay, Interview and Poems. Peoria, IL: Spoon River Poetry Press.

    1989

  • Common Ground: A Gathering of Poems on Rural Life. Co-edited with Mark Vinz. Moorhead, MN: Dacotah Territory Press. Chinese translation by Professor Naikan Tao. People’s Republic of China. Yunnan Province: Yunnan People’s Publishing House.

    1988, 1999, 1990.

  • Minnesota Suite. Poems. Peoria, IL: Spoon River Poetry Press.

    1987, 1988, 1989, and 1994.

  • Roving Across Fields: A Conversation and Uncollected Poems 1942-82 by William Stafford. Essay, Interview, Poems and Bibliography. Editor. Daleville, IN: Barnwood Press.

    1983

  • The View From the Top of the Mountain. Co-editor. Anthology of poems written when their authors were sixty years or older. Co-edited with Tom Koontz. Daleville, IN: Barnwood Press.

    1981

Awards and Recognition

  • 2009 Recipient, Lake Region Arts Council—McKnight Fellowship in Poetry.
  • 2007 WILLA Literary Award (Women Writing the West Association), for To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets Pre-from Territorial Days to the Present
  • 2007 Midwest Booksellers’ Honor Award for Poetry, for To Sing Along the Way
  • 2004 Aniello Lauri Award for Creative Writing from VIA: Voices in Italian Americana
  • 2001 Roland and Beth Dille Distinguished Faulty Lecturer, MSU Moorhead
  • 1999 Ball State University English Department: Distinguished Alumni Award
  • 1997 Jerome Foundation Writing and Travel Fellowship (to Italy)
  • 1996 Minnesota Book Award for Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest
  • 1995 Critics’ Choice Award, San Francisco Review of Books/ Today’s First Edition (PBS T.V. San Francisco) for Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest
  • 1995 Loft-McKnight Award in Poetry
  • 1994 Minnesota Book Award for Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest
  • 1991 Fellowship in Poetry, Minnesota State Arts Board
  • 1987 South Dakota Review Poetry Award
  • 1985 Fellowship in Poetry, Minnesota State Arts Board

Press and Media Mentions