The University of Southern Mississippi recently celebrated student writing for the state's bicentennial by hosting a special writing event in which high school students—guided by professors and graduate students in the English Department (myself included)—wrote poems, essays, and memoirs about their Mississippi experiences. These students went from invention to composition, revision, and publication, all in one day. So proud of the work they did—and grateful for the professors at USM that helped organize the event. Read the students' work here. 

Grateful to be presenting on Derek Walcott's Omeros at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association's annual conference. Check out the conference program here. 

Last spring, I had the pleasure of working on a collaborative found poem using John Keats' 1817 letters, and "Dear Bailey" is now available on The Keats Letters Project blog. Shout out to my collaborators/fellow poets Brandi George, Angela Ball, Chad Foret, Charlee Meiners, Todd Osborne, Jessica Ramer, Jon Riccio, Matthew Schmidt, Anastasia Stelse, and Zachary Williams. Read "Dear Bailey" here. 

So grateful to the editorial staff at Phoebe for selecting my poem, "Register of Futures: Florida," as a finalist for the Greg Grummer Prize and publishing it in their spring 2017 issue. Congratulations to winner Jennifer Givhan, and to the other finalists! Read all of their excellent poems here.

Thrilled to be in such excellent company! Read about my fellow winter scholars here.

A wonderful weekend in Newport, OR full of craft talks, workshop, karaoke, and sea lions at Tin House's Winter Workshop for poetry. Especially grateful for the generosity of my workshop-leader, Ada Limón, and my fellow poets in attendance--and the eagle who made a guest appearance! Thank you to Tin House for organizing this event, and for awarding me a scholarship to attend. 

Grateful to have attended The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900. This year's conference managed a great mix of creative and critical panels. I had the pleasure of both reading poems alongside Amy Ash, Jennifer Bartlett, and Adam Fagin, and presenting an essay on Jewish American poetry as sites of memory. Among the numerous keynotes at this year's event, I especially enjoyed hearing Juliana Spahr read from her newest collection. Thank you to the organizers for putting on a great conference.

Thank you to the editorial staff at Sycamore Review for choosing my poem, "Hurricanes over Sierra Maestra," as a finalist for this year's Wabash Prize for Poetry. I'm grateful to be in such excellent company. Congratulations to all winners, runners-up, and finalists--and special shout-out to fellow USM writers Hannah Dow and Caleb Tankersley! Read the official announcement here.

Happy to have participated in The Lyric Body: A Dance and Poetry Experiment earlier this week. I read my poem from the audience, as if I was a disembodied voice, while the dancer embodied the poem with her performance on stage. From the program:

"In The Lyric Body: A Dance and Poetry Experiment, dance and technology students and Ph.D. students in poetry explore the relationship between movement and language: how does the form of the body and the form of a poem interconnect and speak to one another? How do we as an audience experience these art forms, particularly when they are in conversation? We look forward to expanding our understanding of both dance and poetry in this innovative collaboration."

Special thanks to my collaborator, choreographer Hannah Kendrick!

For the South Atlantic Modern Language Association's annual conference in Jacksonville, I was lucky to participate in the SAMLA Poets in Paradise panel, a reading and discussion by poets with a Florida connection. I'm happy to have read alongside Christopher Cartright, Emily Schulten, and Chelsea Rathburn. Special thanks to Chelsea for organizing!