It seems every family has at least one "wild card" relative — that person who is reliably unreliable, in one way or another. Seattle writer Anne McDuffie's poem "Conditions" tells the wryly comical story of trying to prepare her young children to meet one such relative.
In addition to poetry, McDuffie writes essays and reviews. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
You can also listen to McDuffie's poems "Winter" and "Darrington Rain," written in response to the work of Northwest landscape artist Alden Mason. In 2012, McDuffie was awarded a grant from 4Culture for "Deep Geography," a series of poems written in collaboration with painter Ann Vandervelde.
She lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters. Her reading was recorded in the KUOW Studios on October 25.