In Of Cows and Crows poet Shelley Getten evokes ten years of life on a hardscrabble farm in Central Minnesota as seen through the eyes of a young girl. It's a coming-of-age tale in which the narrator navigates the emotional tumult of her teens while also experiencing the isolation, financial difficulties, and other challenges of living on a farm. Along the way, the poems subtly depict how such a childhood can foster a deep connection to the land and other living things—a process that can heal wounds and strengthen our shared humanness. Of Cows and Crows is rooted in aspects of rural life—poignant, evocative, and dreadful— that are experienced by few, but are likely to be of interest to many.
Shelley Getten was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota. When she was ten, she and her family moved to a farm in the neighboring town of Sauk Rapids. The family farm was eventually sold as the site of the new Sauk Rapids/Rice High School.
Getten's work first appeared in Sidewalks, Gypsy Cab, Poetry Motel, Black Hat Poetry Calendar, Rag Mag and Minnesota Monthly Magazine among others. She coordinated reading events for Our Stories of Miscarriage, Healing with Words (of which she was a contributor) and Grounds For Peace (of which she was an editor) Her chapbook, Agates, was published in 2005 by Finishing Line Press and given a second press run in 2015.
Recent appearances include The Talking Stick, Spillway and Martin Lake Review.
Getten received an Honorable Mention Award in the Rainer Maria Rilke International Poetry Competition and was a first-place winner in the Lake Superior Writers annual competition for poetry. Her poems have been anthologized and transformed into interpretive dance and chamber music. They have been included in ekphrastic gallery events and radio programming.
Getten has spent the last twelve summers teaching art and writing at Summerblue Theatre Arts Camp in Two Harbors and also teaches printmaking workshops at the Duluth Folk School. She thoroughly enjoys sharing the magic of bringing a poem or artwork to life.
Shelley currently resides with her life partner, Brien, in Two Harbors, Minnesota near the North Shore of Lake Superior. She continues to write and create visual art in her Getten Creative studio, just steps from her log cabin home on the Knife River.
"What an intense, vivid, stunning reclamation of a world this poet offers us. Truthful narratives, ferocious images that take one's breath, love and violence and versions and visions of survival in a rural landscape. Getten takes us there, and we cannot stop reading this beautiful, trustworthy collection." - Deborah Keenan
"Poet and artist Shelley Getten handles tenderly the twists and turns in family ties as well as good will. In Of Cows and Crows, Getten weaves past and present skillfully and winsomely into her poems. The result is a pleasure for readers and listeners in Getten's first book." - Sharon Chmielarz
"Opening this book is akin to entering an archeological dig. In it we find the raked shag carpet of double-wide trailers, mysterious great-uncles, a holy relationship with a sister, and much of the beauty and brutality of life on a farm. In poem after poem, Getten's childhood rises up as alive and brightly lit." - Ryan Vine
