The poems in Modern Love & Other Myths explore, as Elizabeth Bishop phrased it, “efforts of affection” in our contemporary world. Sutphen’s appraisals— both personal and general—resonate deeply with all who have mapped the story land between “hello” and “goodbye.” The title invites us to examine what we mean by myth, and whether, in fact, love can ever be regarded as modern. Wise and inquisitive, the poems in this collection travel across continents as easily as into the heart.

Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm near St. Joseph, Minnesota and currently lives in Chaska, Minnesota. She has degrees from the University of Minnesota, including a Ph. D. in Renaissance Drama.

Sutphen's most recent book is Modern Love & Other Myths (2015). Her first book, Straight Out of View, won the Barnard New Women's Poets Prize (Beacon Press, 1995, republished by Holy Cow! Press in 2001). Coming Back to the Body (Holy Cow! Press, 2000) was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and Naming the Stars (Holy Cow! Press 2004), won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry. In 2005, Red Dragonfly Press published Fourteen Sonnets in a letterpress edition, and in 2006 she co-edited To Sing Along the Way, an award-winning anthology of Minnesota Women Poets from the Territorial Days to the Present (New Rivers Press).

Her poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Minnesota Monthly, North Dakota Review, and many other journals, and she has been a guest on A Prairie Home Companion, hosted by Garrison Keillor.