By Jacob Moon

Surrounded by books on poetry and literature in his modest office on the third floor of the Ray B. West Building, Michael Sowder recited one of almost 50 poems he has memorized:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

"I guess that's kind of a depressing one," Sowder says of Robert Frost's
"Nothing Gold Can Stay."

But Sowder doesn't only memorize poetry; he also teaches it at Utah State University and writes his own. Most recently, Truman State University Press awarded him the 2004 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, a nationally recognized award for a book-length collection of poetry.

According to a press release, Sowder's winning collection, The Empty Boat, was selected from 602 manuscripts in the eighth annual competition. Along with a $2,000 award, his book will be published and is due out in June.

His collection of 75 poems is the result of 12 years of work and two major career changes. Sowder graduated from the University of Alabama and continued working on his law degree at the University of Washington.

Although poetry and writing were his true loves, he felt he should do something more practical.

"I knew it was a mistake when I got there," he said about arriving at his job in Atlanta, Ga., as a lawyer. "Poetry was calling me back. I felt like the
legal profession doesn't have a heart."

Law was interesting and challenging to Sowder, but he said it felt empty.

Lawyers were expected to have a certain life, he said. And along with that
life came a certain suit, a certain, car and a certain house, all things Sowder didn't want to live up to.

He went back to school at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and completed the work for his master of fine arts degree. He now lives in Preston with his wife, Jennifer Sinor, a professor in the English department, and enjoys the outdoors and the opportunity it affords him to do what he loves -- write.

"Solitude is good for being a writer," he said. "It is good to be able to get away in the mountains and think."

Those thoughts may eventually be written down and used during the most important times of anyone's life, Sowder says.

"People turn to poems in moments of crisis," he said. "They provide a certain depth and help delve into what it means to be a human being.

While his lifestyle and allows him time to write and think, Sowder's profession gives him the chance to do the other thing he loves – teach.

Learning, he says, should be a form of play.

"If you can turn someone on to literature or poetry, they may just stick with it for the rest of their life," he said.

That change occurred for him during high school and continued through college because of two influential professors. Sowder said he hopes he can help other students find what they love.

Sowder's poetry is written in a style that he calls more accessible, meaning it doesn't need too much thought to catch on to the meaning of what he is writing. He has published two chapbooks, or smaller collections of poetry, one of which is called A Calendar of Crows. The book contains 12 poems, all different anecdotes about crows, one meant to be read each month.

Crows, Sowder says, are a bird most people hates, but he loves them.

"I see part of the work of a poet is to find beauty and value in things most
of us overlook most of the time," he said. "A Native American friend once told me that you don't choose your ‘spirit animal,' it chooses you."

One of the poems begins:

We call him Ahab, the crow
with the missing foot, who lived
with his cell-mate in hog-wire
between the snowy owls
and turkey vultures.

To really understand any poem, Sowder suggests reading it at least three times. He said he understands that poetry can sometimes be off-putting, but
after reading it a few times it becomes easier to understand.

We call him Ahab, the crow
with the missing foot, who lived
with his cell-mate in hog-wire
between the snowy owls
and turkey vultures.

"Once the poem blossoms, it really comes alive for you," Sowder said.

We call him Ahab, the crow
with the missing foot, who lived
with his cell-mate in hog-wire
between the snowy owls
and turkey vultures.

… And that was just the beginning.

The most important part of being a writer is paying attention, Sowder said.

Writers must keep their eyes open to poems all the time. And he assumes that, like for him, for most writers the product is never really complete.

"Poems are never finished," he said. "They are only abandoned."

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