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I write and teach along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. I love exploring the riverlands with a fly rod and believe every watershed should have a Poet Laureate. My writing has appeared in Orion Magazine, The Flyfish Journal, River Teeth Journal, The Hopper Magazine, North American Review, Gray's Sporting Journal, The Drake Magazine, and various anthologies and magazines. I am the author of two poetry collections - River, Amen (Winner of the Weatherford Award for Poetry) and Robbing the Pillars - and was an Artist in Residence for The Bob Marshall Wilderness. My writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Spiritual Literature, Best Small Fictions Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to order a signed copy of a book, schedule a reading, or go fishing.
Some Recent Publications
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River, Amen - Winner of the Weatherford Award for Poetry
What the judges had to say: "Garrigan’s ecological poems of Northern Appalachian waterways combine the poet’s experiences as a naturalist, angler, and bio-philosopher to make varied and memorable poems that celebrate the region, the sacredness of place, and poetry-making that sings with beauty and wildness.” River, Amen was published through Homebound Publications in April 2023. River, Amen reclaims religious rituals and resurrects them in the wilderness. What emerges is a deliberate dialogue with rivers, a celebrative creed for rewilding post-industrial landscapes. This immersive, restorative collection offers a new language for understanding our place in relation to the living world and a prophetic warning that we separate the physical and spiritual at our own peril. Please reach out if you'd like to schedule a reading to hear poems about rivers, carp becoming gods, post-industrial wildernesses, fly fishing, or the Susquehanna River, or Maine... 
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Limited Edition Broadside
I wrote "River Theology" in honor of the conservation efforts that have worked to establish wilderness areas and wild & scenic rivers. Specifically, this poem was written during my Artist Residency in The Bob Marshall Wilderness where I stayed in a cabin for two weeks along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. This river was supposed to be dammed, but thanks to the efforts of many people and organizations, it was protected and is still a free flowing wild river. You can purchase a limited edition (only 25 printed) broadside (signed & numbered) through the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation with all the proceeds going to the organization and in support of the Artist in Residence Program. |
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I'm incredibly excited to announce that my first full-length collection of poetry, Robbing the Pillars, is available from Homebound Publications!
The headwaters of Robbing the Pillars begin deep in the anthracite country of Pennsylvania and wind their way through mountain tributaries before reaching the Susquehanna River. These poems venture out west through smeared Nebraskan skies, up wild Washington waters, and into the Siskiyou Mountains as meteors split the sky on fire. They traverse the wet woods of Maine along the West Branch of the Penobscot River to the peak of Katahdin. They hike the Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest Trails.
In the early coal mines of Pennsylvania, miners crawled into the deepest parts of the mines, set dynamite, and blew joists holding up walls in hopes of getting the last valuable rock before the mountain collapsed -- robbing the pillars. The poems in Robbing the Pillars are the dynamite, the pillars, the rock, the mountain, and the miners. They embrace terrains familiar and forgotten -- those which have been stripped and left to become wild again. They explore the physical (geological, riverine), familial, personal, and cultural landscapes of our world as we rob its pillars.
The headwaters of Robbing the Pillars begin deep in the anthracite country of Pennsylvania and wind their way through mountain tributaries before reaching the Susquehanna River. These poems venture out west through smeared Nebraskan skies, up wild Washington waters, and into the Siskiyou Mountains as meteors split the sky on fire. They traverse the wet woods of Maine along the West Branch of the Penobscot River to the peak of Katahdin. They hike the Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest Trails.
In the early coal mines of Pennsylvania, miners crawled into the deepest parts of the mines, set dynamite, and blew joists holding up walls in hopes of getting the last valuable rock before the mountain collapsed -- robbing the pillars. The poems in Robbing the Pillars are the dynamite, the pillars, the rock, the mountain, and the miners. They embrace terrains familiar and forgotten -- those which have been stripped and left to become wild again. They explore the physical (geological, riverine), familial, personal, and cultural landscapes of our world as we rob its pillars.
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