In poetry, more than in any other type of writing, language drives meaning. By focusing on the small elements of craft: line, syntax and line break, image and metaphor, sound and diction, I believe the poet finds a way to discover and inform the large elements: inspiration, intention, concept, invention, and communication. I engage each poem—and student—on their own terms, taking them as far (and deep) as possible, while challenging the student to examine their assumptions about what a poem can do. Through my extensive experience as an editor, I am especially able to help envision and re-envision a poem as well as a thesis/manuscript. My students have published books and chapbooks as well as poems in journals.
Work
Work
Books
- It Isn't a Ghost if it Lives in Your Chest (2021)
- Shadow-feast (2018)
- Ay (2014)
- The Us (2009)
- The Mending Worm (2006)
- Hand-Held Executions: Poems & Essays (2003)
Journals
- Academy of American Poets
- Association of Literary Scholars
- Critics and Writers;
- Boston Review
- Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Arts
- Gettysburg Review
- Gulf Coast
- Harvard Review
- Massachusetts Review
- Poetry
- Poetry International
- Plume
- Southampton Review
- Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art
- And many others
Anthologies
- The Book of Irish-American Poetry—Eighteenth Century to Present (University of Notre Dame Press)
- The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press)
- The World is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins (Clemson University Press)
Essays and reviews published in:
- Boston Comment
- Contemporary Poetry Review
- Pleiades
- Poetry Society of America
- And others
Awards
- 2021 Julia Ward Howe Award
- Must-read book of 2009 and 2018 (Massachusetts Center for the Book)
- Green Rose Award for a Second Book (New Issues Press)
Affiliations
- Professor of Practice, Clark University
- Founding Director of Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
Past Affiliations
- Columbia University
- Emerson College
- Founder and Director of the Concord Poetry Center
- Former Editor-in-Chief of Perihelion
- Former Poetry Editor of Del Sol Review
- Contributing Editor, Contemporary Poetry Review
- Associate Editor of Tupelo Quarterly
Education
Education
BA, English, University of Massachusetts Amherst
M.A.T., English, University of Massachusetts Amherst