Wisconsin Poet Laureate Nick Gulig Remembers Time at UM

There is a memory from his time at the University of Montana that has stuck with poet Nick Gulig for many years. On the first day of a class taught by poetry Professor Joanna Klink, Gulig remembers watching as she walked to the whiteboard and wrote three words: to feel alive. 

“That has come to live as a kind of declaration of what it is that I want poems to do,” said Gulig. “Anything we’re reading and writing is there to help people feel alive.”

That philosophy has evidently resonated with Gulig’s audience. He was recently recognized by his home state of Wisconsin to serve as its next poet laureate. The title is in addition to his role as an associate professor of languages and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. 

There was a time when a successful career in poetry didn’t seem like a certainty to Gulig. Growing up in Eau Claire, he was more interested in playing hockey. When he reached high school, Gulig found a new group of friends and a new passion for the arts.

“The most interesting people I was meeting at my high school were all kids who were interested in art in one form or another, whether it was music or poetry,” he said.

After high school, Gulig completed a semester of college in Eau Claire but didn’t feel ready to give a full commitment to higher education. 

“I was 18 years old and still within reach of all my high school friends, which does not make for great focus,” he joked. 

He spent some time living in Kansas City and worked different jobs before beginning to seriously consider his future.

“I decided ‘Well, I can’t just keep doing this forever,’” Gulig said.

He came across UM while searching online for creative writing programs.

“I was poking around on the website and realized how beautiful Montana was,” he said.  “It seemed like a whole new world to me.”

Gulig arrived in Missoula in 2002 and found a community where his identity as a poet began to take shape, spurred on by support from faculty like Klink and Robert Baker, a literature professor and chair of the English department at UM.  Gulig remembers spending countless hours in their offices asking questions about the new material and ideas he was learning in class. It was a time that had a powerful impact on Gulig. 

“They were the first two thinkers to take my thinking seriously,” he said. “When someone that you look up to gives you the time of day, it gives you permission to give yourself the time of day.”

Gulig continued to find his footing as a poet and took advantage of the literary environment on campus, especially UM’s MFA students.

“They were doing things like hosting readings and cultivating a community and a literary scene,” said Gulig. “They were showing me what life as a graduate student could look like. 

Gulig decided he wanted to pursue a Master of Fine Arts. After graduating from UM, he returned to Wisconsin to develop his portfolio. He spent a year working on farms by day and writing by night.

That work paid off, and Gulig was accepted to the University of Iowa. There, he spent time instructing undergraduate students and developed a passion for teaching.

“I was leaning in many ways on the memories I had from the University of Montana,” he said. “The reason I wanted to be a teacher was that I wanted to be for someone what Joanna and Bob were for me.”

While Gulig knows he would be writing poetry even if no one reads it, he is grateful for his latest achievement.

“The older you get, the more important it is to feel like your time was important to other people or that the work you’re doing wasn’t just for yourself,” he said. “When I got the call that I was going to be the poet laureate, it was really validating.” 

The role has put him in touch with a wider community of Wisconsinites working to spotlight the arts and education. Gulig hopes to bring that work to the forefront in his time as poet laureate.

“I can bring that visibility to all these individuals and all these groups that have been doing this work in the shadows and behind the scenes,” he said.

More than a decade after graduating from UM, Gulig still feels a strong connection to his alma mater and the relationships he built there. His UM professors were the first people he reached out to when he learned he would be poet laureate.

Gulig’s experience in Missoula inspired his message to those who may dream of becoming poets.

“Find your teachers and listen to them,” he said. “Their bookshelves are an incredible resource.”