Literary Spotlight: Lucy Biederman’s “Cannon Beach” Named Poem of the Week

Executive Overview

In the contemporary literary landscape, poetry often serves as an archival bridge, connecting raw geographical displacement with the intricate architecture of human memory. Continuing its tradition of highlighting exceptional contemporary verse, The Missouri Review has officially named Lucy Biederman’s evocative poem, “Cannon Beach,” as its Poem of the Week.

Biederman, an established voice in both poetry and prose, brings a distinct regional and psychological lens to her work. Her poems have previously graced the pages of prominent literary publications such as Bat City Review, Sixth Finch, and Poetry, while her prose has found homes in Ploughshares, Rejection Letters, and Wigleaf. Furthermore, her acclaimed book, The Walmart Book of the Dead—which earned the prestigious Vine Leaves Press Vignette Collection Award and was published in 2017—solidified her reputation for sharp cultural observation and innovative form.

Based in Chicago, Biederman balances a vibrant academic and professional life. She works actively in college access programs and imparts her craft as a first-year writing instructor at the College of DuPage. Yet, despite her urban roots and Midwestern residency, her creative output frequently ventures outward, seeking translation across diverse landscapes. “Cannon Beach,” written After Stevens, is a masterful exploration of maritime mists, environmental protection, sensory alienation, and the ghost limbs of memory.

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This feature explores the genesis of Biederman’s celebrated poem, dissects its literary lineage and structural nuances, examines the author’s personal creative process, and evaluates its broader resonance within the contemporary American poetry scene.

Detailed Chronology of Creation

The genesis of a poem is rarely a singular, isolated spark; more often, it is a slow combustion fueled by years of reading, auditory cross-pollination, geographical dislocation, and academic routine. For Biederman, the timeline of “Cannon Beach” spans over a year of deep intellectual incubation.

Phase 1: The Seed of Inspiration (The Annulet Linkages Lecture)

The foundational stone of the poem was laid when Biederman attended an Annulet Linkages Lecture. During the event, writer and scholar Zach Savich read from and discussed his book, A Field of Telephones (53rd State Press, 2025). Savich’s work, fundamentally a scholarly inquiry into the poetry and life of Theodore Roethke, operates outside traditional academic boundaries. Instead of offering rigid critical exegesis, the book "pokes ellipses in what it knows," repeatedly transforming itself into poetry to explore alternative epistemologies—other ways of knowing the world.

Crucially, the conclusion of Savich’s book converges on Cannon Beach—simultaneously a physical destination on the rugged Oregon coast and a psychological landscape of the mind. For Biederman, a writer rooted in the flat, freshwater expanse of the Great Lakes, visiting the actual Cannon Beach the year prior had been an unsettling experience. It was an alien, dramatic topography that left her simultaneously confused, horrified, and intensely fascinated. Savich’s textual framing of the location provided the theoretical and emotional key to unlock that earlier disorientation.

Phase 2: The Auditory Catalyst (The Commute and the Classroom)

Months of passive rumination followed. Biederman carried the concepts from Savich’s lecture with her, letting them settle beneath the surface of her daily academic life in Chicago. The catalyst that finally forced the material to the surface came through popular culture and the mundane rhythms of a working writer’s morning commute.

Listening to country-folk artist Zach Bryan’s latest album on her drive to teach, a specific lyric caught her attention: "They covered all the songs that were best left alone." The melancholy cadence of Bryan’s song, intersecting with her lingering thoughts of the Pacific Northwest, provided the necessary tonal frequency.

Arriving on campus, Biederman immediately sat down to write alongside her students. In that generative classroom environment, the first drafts of “Cannon Beach” began to pour out.

Phase 3: The Intertextual Layering (Wallace Stevens and the Workshop)

As the poem took shape organically, Biederman noticed the spontaneous intrusion of Wallace Stevens’ lexicon—words like sky, sea, and afternoon echoing through the lines. Recognizing the weight of this intertextual dialogue, she integrated Stevens into her daily routine, carrying his Collected Poems in her backpack to converse directly with his modernist ghosts throughout the semester.

By the end of the academic term, a complete draft had materialized. However, the poem’s refinement relied heavily on communal critique. Biederman credits her "reliably brilliant poetry workshop"—comprising fellow writers Kathy Goodkin, Karen Kilcup, Jess Cory, Ruth Hoberman, and Jennifer Whitaker—with polishing the draft into its final, published form.

Supporting Context & Metrics

To fully appreciate the weight of “Cannon Beach” within Biederman’s oeuvre, it is helpful to examine the literary ecosystem from which it emerges.

Publication and Reception Metrics

Platform: The Missouri Review – Poem of the Week initiative.
Visual Pairing: Eugène Boudin’s Impressionist painting, Deauville, la plage (circa 1888-1895), which establishes a thematic continuity regarding coastal mists, human figures at the edge of land and sea, and historical aesthetic distance.
Authorial Output: One award-winning vignette collection (The Walmart Book of the Dead, 2017), numerous appearances in top-tier literary journals (Poetry, Ploughshares), and an active academic footprint in Illinois higher education.

Artistic Influences

The poem explicitly and implicitly draws upon a trinity of influences:

Theodore Roethke & Zach Savich: Focused on ecological interconnectedness, regional alienation, and the limits of rational knowledge.
Wallace Stevens: Evoked through modernist abstraction, preoccupation with seasonal and meteorological atmospheres (the cold August mist), and the philosophical tension between reality and the imagination (the world as word).
Contemporary Americana (Zach Bryan): Providing a modern, melancholic soundtrack of preservation, loss, and the haunting nature of nostalgia.

Official Statements and Author’s Note

In her official Author’s Note provided to The Missouri Review, Biederman opened up about the labyrinthine journey of the poem’s composition:

"The seed of this poem was planted in me when I listened to Zach Savich read from and speak about his wonderful book A Field of Telephones (53rd State Press, 2025) in an Annulet Linkages Lecture. A Field of Telephones is a scholarly book about Theodore Rothke, but it pokes ellipses in what it knows, turning itself into poems again and again to show other ways of knowing. The end of the book takes place at a Cannon Beach of the mind and the real Cannon Beach, an alien place that I, a person of the Great Lakes, had been confused, horrified, and interested to find myself at the year before I heard Zach’s lecture."

Reflecting on the bridge between scholarship, music, and the physical act of teaching, she added:

"I was thinking about what Zach wrote, thinking about it for a year or more. Zach Bryan came out with yet another new album, and this one had a song about Cannon Beach on it. ‘They covered all the songs that were best left alone,’ he sings. I was listening to it on the way to teach. When I got to class and we were all writing together, I began finally to write this poem. It had Wallace Stevens words in it: sky, sea, afternoon. I had to see what Stevens had to say about it, so I started bringing around his Collected in my backpack. By the end of the semester, I had a draft. Thank you always to my reliably brilliant poetry workshop…"

Future Outlook

The recognition of “Cannon Beach” as Poem of the Week signals an exciting juncture in Lucy Biederman’s literary trajectory. As she continues her work in college access and undergraduate writing instruction at the College of DuPage, her footprint in contemporary American letters continues to expand.

Critics and readers alike are taking note of how Biederman bridges the gap between academic critique and visceral, lyric vulnerability. By channeling the spirits of Stevens, Roethke, and Savich while keeping one foot firmly planted in the contemporary landscape of Midwestern pedagogy and travel, Biederman demonstrates that poetry remains our most adaptive tool for mapping unfamiliar terrains.

As “Cannon Beach” reaches a wider audience through The Missouri Review, anticipation builds for what Biederman will tackle next—proving that whether she is documenting the retail ruins of America in The Walmart Book of the Dead or standing shivering in an August mist at the edge of the Pacific, her poetic vision remains razor-sharp, intellectually rigorous, and deeply human.