About Tucker Riggleman
My creative writing blends dreamscapes with memories and half-truths to create broken love letters to the places I have called home and the personal demons I have faced and (mostly) conquered along the way.
The poetry I craft is succinct and potent. I use brevity and nostalgia to share impactful glimpses into what it is like to grow up a creative kid in the isolated hollers of rural West Virginia.
My music is heavily inspired by the loud and proud country rock of my time spent growing up in the beer joints and community halls of Hardy County. I revisit these musical traditions with a speculative eye, weaving in my own poetic sensibilities and songcraft.
Biography
I am a writer and musician currently living in Fairmont, West Virginia. I have been a touring musician for the past 17 years, co-founding The Demon Beat, Prison Book Club, Bishops, and the currently active Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates. I have self-released three poetry collections, including 2024’s “The Wind Through the Sycamores is a Violin”. My poems have been featured in Dinner Bell, Sky Island Journal, the Nervous Breakdown, the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project and more. My poem “The Undeniable Proof of God” was featured in the West Virginia Humanities Council series Poetry in a Time of Crisis: WV Poets on Community, Resilience, and the Power of the Arts.
I was born and raised in the Eastern Panhandle’s South Branch Valley in Hardy County. I attended Shepherd University and stayed in the area for 11 years total, where I started multiple influential bands, booked and promoted a variety of art events, and ran the indie record label Big Bullet Records. My writing draws heavily from the woods and waters of West Virginia. I lived directly in the Monongahela National Forest from 2019-2021, which was a transformative time for me both personally and artistically. In 2023 and 2024, several of my poems were featured in the Create the Mon art exhibit hosted by the WV Rivers Coalition and West Virginians for Public Lands.
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Other Creative Skills
Music: Band
Musician
