Rosie Rey

CONTACT:
N5633 Maders Circle
Shawano, WI 54166
715.304.1334
RosieRey1328@icloud.com
www.Mamarosiesdream.com
www.RosieReySolutions.com

BIO:
Rosie Rey has been writing their whole life, on napkins at dinner as a kid (to the mild horror of their grandparents), in margins, on scraps of paper, and anywhere words insisted on landing. They began receiving recognition when they were young, but life called them into a different kind of creative work for a while.

They stepped back from formal writing to help raise a house full of children—more than 20 over the years, including their son, daughter, and granddaughter. It was chaotic, beautiful, exhausting, and absolutely their joy. The poems didn’t disappear. They just waited on random envelopes, on the back of kids’ art projects, and scraps of paper.

Rosie now serves as Business Manager for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Poetry Calendar, Secretary of the Board for Shawano Area Writers, and is a member of the Wisconsin Writers Association. Their creative work stretches beyond the page: they wrote and directed Holiday Air for the River Valley Players and taught, wrote, and directed Camp Burlesque for more than a decade. They have volunteered with organizations such as WORT and Safe Haven and served as an assistant editor for the Mississippi Valley Review.

They teach foundational writing at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay and lead Writing Workshop and Human/AI Collaboration courses through Shawano Community Education. Rosie produces original music in collaboration with Sage (AI) and shares creative work through YouTube and TikTok. They are the author of the recently published chapbook, Faces: Black & Blue.

When not writing, teaching, or making music, Rosie remodels and builds homes (they hold a Dwelling Contractor license), upcycles and crafts, and experiments with sustainable and medicinal planting. Rosie and Jordan (their dog) live in a cottage across from Shawano Lake, where creativity, community, and curiosity continue to grow and are always shared, often over a cup of tea (or whiskey), with anyone who stops by.

PUBLICATIONS:
Faces: Black and Blue

Poetry

Heredity

I’m learning what not to say
An envelope licked, unopened,
keeping its secrets by the letter
unknown beneath the bills, junk
mail of his life, her life. They
meet unknowing I loved them both 
in my confusion. thoughts cannot be counted,
they won’t hold still as varied as constellations
but without the decisiveness to
make the pictures. Though
the fact is that thought of the reality of the Maker
great or small. Our thoughts occur unanswered until
a child or wise man points 
for his mother… “Don’t you 
see Mama, it’s a bear or
twins, a lion.”

“Tell me the story, Mama.
How was he like me?” Oh,
wise man, how? We impose
our stories on the Heavens
unimpeded because of our
sincerity. Sincerely, I touch
you when you’re not looking. “A
breeze,” I mutter when questioning
you look at me. Everything
sincere is true. I have not
the heart to say: “Son, hon, my love,
my friend, he is nothing like you. That
is gases performing a function.
You are the blessed confusion,
sincerity in skin.” There are
no paths, no place to begin.
Eternity is ever. We have the time.
A broken clock smiling. We have
space to love and not. Sing,
jump, laugh. You cannot break it.
Eternal is ever, and I’m learning
what not to say. Not to confuse,
not open eyes, and live
where the light’s too bright. I won’t
explain in blindness is true sign. “Don’t
look into the sun, son. Have I told you 
the one about…”