Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 2 PM
By Doris Fields
If you have driven on NM Highway 165, you may have seen the cutely decorated sign on the side of the road announcing “Jules Poetry Playhouse.” Once each month, Jules and her partner in life, poet John Roche, host the Playhouse in their creative garden. Poets from throughout New Mexico, neighboring states and, indeed, other countries come to create, play, write, and share in the delight of poetry in Jules Poetry Playhouse. On Saturday, September 26, at 2:00 PM, everyone will have an opportunity to hear Jules and John read poems. Some of their poems, no doubt, blossomed from the Playhouse!
Jules Nyquist holds an MFA in Writing & Literature (Poetry) from Bennington College, and a B.A. in Creative Writing from Metropolitan State University. She experiments with sound and form, and writes poetry on the page and for performance. Jules’ two books of poems, Behind the Volcanoes and Appetites (Beatlick Press), were finalists for the NM/AZ Book Awards in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Her poems have appeared in 5 AM, Salamander, Malpais Review, Adobe Walls, St. Paul Almanac, Long Islander News, Gray Sparrow, House Organ, Duke City Fix, Café Review and others. She is co-editor of the Poets Speak anthology series with John Roche and edited the volume 2 Hers series in 2017.
After earning an M.A. at University College Dublin and a PhD at SUNY Buffalo, John Roche taught Literature and Creative Writing classes for four decades at various colleges and universities, including Emory University and Michigan State, and is Emeritus Associate Professor from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Along with editing the five-volume Poets Speak series (Beatlick Press/Poetry Playhouse Publications 2017-2018), and other anthologies (including Mo’ Joe, Beatlick Press 2014), his own poetry collections include On Conesus (FootHills 2005), Topicalities (FootHills 2008), Road Ghosts (theenk Books 2011), The Joe Poems: The Continuing Saga of Joe the Poet (FootHills 2012), Joe Rides Again: Further Adventures of Joe the Poet (FootHills 2005), and Tubbables (Poetry Playhouse Publications 2024).
Jules and John live in Placitas and are excited to share poems from their assortment of award-winning books, along with new work. Themes such as the New Mexico landscape, road ghosts, wildlife, nuclear history, fun with forms, and word-play may have you inspired to try your own. A portion of book sales will benefit the library.
