B.A. English, University of California Los Angeles
M.A. English Literature, University of Southern California
Ph.D. Literature and Creative Writing, University of Southern California
Mailing: Box 358530, 18115 Campus Way NE, Bothell, WA 98011-8246
In all of my classes, we focus on the materials through which meaning is made, encompassing form, content, and medium in order to gain a larger sense of a given work. From close reading poems to considering the cultural implications of writing technologies, I encourage students to consider why writing takes the form it does and how it is, in turn, influenced by the form it takes. My aim in the classroom is to encourage a sense of community in order to facilitate risk-taking and experimentation, and I ask my students to approach our subjects with an open mind and generous spirit, treating one another’s work with the same respect we give to published pieces.
Recent Courses Taught
BIS 208 Experimenting through the Arts
BISIA 207 Introduction to Creative Writing
BISIA 310 Creative Writing: Poetry
BCWRIT 501 Between Fact & Imagination
My work as a scholar and poet is united by a focus on textual materiality—from the surface of the page to the surface of language. My poetry is highly attuned to the texture of words, their resonances and slippages, often drawing on etymology and language play. I rely on collaboration to supplement my individual writing practice and keep me connected to a larger writing world. My collaborative projects include a collaborative translation, with Gabriela Jauregui, of Oulipo poet Paul Braffort, and a performance/interactive book hybrid, created with Kate Durbin and Zach Kleyn, among other works.
In my scholarly work, I am currently completing a monograph that examines the conspicuous foregrounding of mediation in poetry by Gertrude Stein, Blaise Cendrars, and H.D., which alerts the reader to a physical intervention between poet and page. Read alongside the rise of graphic design, which placed what Walter Benjamin called “the upright script” on billboards, in newspapers, and on movie screens, these poems engage the dialogue surrounding media between the wars that promised access to language and images beyond the page.
Books and Chapbooks
Handiwork, Slope Editions. 2012.
Between Page and Screen, in collaboration with Brad Bouse, Siglio Press. 2012.
Tonal Saw, The Song Cave. 2010.
“The Upright Script: Words in Space and on the Page.” Journal of Electronic Publishing 14.2 (2011), special issue, Digital Poetry.
“‘There Have Been Pictures Here’: Spirit Photography and Projective Mediumship in H.D.’s Tribute to Freud.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 10.2 (2010), special issue, H.D. and the Archaeology of Religion: 65-82.
“‘Ma belle machine à écrire:’ Poet and Typewriter in the work of Blaise Cendrars.” Writing Technologies 2.1 (2008): n. pag. (24 pages).
Harp & Altar: “Pomegranate: Rimon’s Rhyme” and “In Which Things That Hurt Us Are Stored For Winter.”
PEN American Blog: “What Is Withheld.”
Gulf Coast: “A New Vessel.”