After writing poetry for nearly 50 years, Jude MacAllen Tatman enrolled in an MFA program. In this episode, he sits down with Jared to discuss what it’s like to revisit poems he drafted in the 1980s along with crafting new work. Plus, he discusses writing about his life’s most consequential crossroads, treating writing like work, and finding faculty who make themselves available to students even in a low-residency program.

Jude MacAllen Tatman is a poet from Missouri who is in his final semester at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s low-residency program. MacAllen has been writing poetry off and on for fifty years while also serving as a deckhand on towboats, playing semi-pro baseball in West Texas, delivering pizzas, waiting tables, owning a bar, working as an historian in Missouri State Parks’ Historic Preservation Program, and even once participating in an episode of Jeopardy. His poem, “Salvation,” was published in the literary journal Envy’s Sting, and his chapbook, Echoes: Selected Poems & Stories 1984-2023, is now available.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

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Jude MacAllen Tatman — University of Nebraska Omaha