artist bio

Poet Terimarie Degree grew up with both parents serving in the US Navy. This afforded the opportunity to live everywhere from southern California to unique locales such as the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Those experiences supplied a foundation for reflections on faith, family, relationships, coming of age in the 1980s, the beauty found in the natural world and the role people have to care for it and one another. Terimarie has a number of poems published online as well as work in four books: Permeable to the Year (2017), The Third Eye (2017), Where I Want to Live (2018) and Secret Words Volume 4 (2019).

artist statement

I’ve always enjoyed books, first those that were read to me and then reading solo. About 5th grade came the thought, “I think I can do this too.” That waned a bit. In 1999 I went to Calvin College on a mission to work as a television journalist but eventually found my way to the English department and stayed. I left in 2003 with a BA in English and Sociology, writing ever in the back of my mind but making a self-sustaining wage at the forefront. Life happened as they say. Job after job, grad program after grad program (I’ll tell you how many I started but didn’t finish if you ask) tending to children, all the while the urge to write creatively went from a simmer to a roiling boil.

Thankfully by 2014 I finally got to the point where I had to write and I changed my entire life around to truly make space for it to happen. It’s been a wonderful journey since. In these almost five years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have my work included in several gallery shows, to perform poetry readings at a diverse array of venues from a jazz club to church carnival and I’ve been especially delighted to have my words printed by a handful of places in the greater Milwaukee area plus a literary group in Los Angeles. The relationships that have been birthed are what I’d say have been most fruitful (ah a nature reference finally!) and a pleasant surprise. To be known as ‘poet’ now and to have a community of peers and mentors as I develop my craft is a treasure.

I continually ask myself questions, “What can I do?” and “What can poetry do?” So much is going on in the world and I’d like to contribute somehow adding to the good and fortunately I’ve found many ways to do that. Donating poems for nonprofit fundraisers (Arts@Large, AIDS Resource Center of Milwaukee, ZipMKE), donating my time to teach poetry at schools (Franklin Elementary, Bridges Virtual Academy) and submitting work to chapbooks and shows with a mission (Where I Want to Live - Fair Housing chapbook, SWAN Day MKE - Highlighting Women artists) have all been a way for me to do my part.

proficiencies