My primary area of research is concerned with the methods by which marginalized identities are represented in contemporary poetics and the ways in which these identities subvert, reclaim and write against the patriarchal traditions that underlie the canon of Anglophone poetry. In this research I engage with a variety of intersectional identities—women, LGBT poets, poets of color and disabled poets—while taking an historical, ethnographic approach in my examination of how these marginalized identities are brought to bear in range of poetic practices, from formal constraints to voice and theme. My dissertation, a full length poetry collection called The Auspices and it’s accompanying critical essay, “The Muses Breathe Out a Voice: Revealing Identities in Contemporary Poetry” explores this inquiry further, seeking clarity about how contemporary poetic identity is rendered and understood.

 

My teaching, like my research, reflects a passionate interest in teaching students to cultivate self-knowledge and represent their identities on the page, whether by composing a poem or an academic essay. To do this, I ask students to engage in various modes of critical and creative thinking, instructing them in the practices of embracing curiosity and risking convention. My primary goal, ultimately, is to allow students the space to explore what they know, suppose, imagine and dare not think.