Wyoming Public Radio Speaks With Wyoming's Poet Laureate, Eugene Gagliano

At Wyoming Public Radio, Naina Rao invites Wyoming Poet Laureate Eugene Gagliano to read his poem "The Blessing of Wyoming," which was recently published in the New York Times. Rao asks: "[W]hen your poem got published, what - how did you feel?" From there: 

EG: Well, I was happy. You know, I thought, well, that's kind of neat. It's always nice to have your work recognized. And then I thought, well, good. This gets out there and people can have a different viewpoint maybe of Wyoming.

NR: You're originally from Niagara Falls.

EG: Mm-hmm. Born and raised there.

NR: What was the decision? What made you decide to move to Wyoming?

EG: For two years or two summers, when I was in college, I went on a traveling summer camp for boys. And while the first year we went Southwest, and we put 11,000 miles on the cars, camped at national parks, and we did the same thing the next year. We went Northwest. And after having seen the West, I was hooked. And so my wife and I, I told her, I said you're gonna love this, you got to see it. So I took her out the next summer. And she agreed she wants to live out here, [it] was beautiful, fresh air, blue skies.

And we looked around and I started writing letters to different chambers of commerce. I wanted to be in a place where there was fresh water, clean air, lots of beautiful mountains. And we started sending them out and it just happened, it fell into place. I got a call from Buffalo. And they said, 'If you come out here, we'd be more than interested in having you teach probably.' And I said, 'Oh, sure, no problem.' And I did and I fell in love with it. And I passed my test. And next thing you know, I was out here.

Read more or listen to their conversation at Wyoming Public Radio.