Education 

PhD, University of Texas, Austin, 1994
MA, University of Texas, Austin, 1989
BS, Biblical Studies, Institute for Christian Studies, Austin, TX, 1992
BA, English and French, Harding University, Searcy, AR, 1985

Specialization

   •  Irish literature and culture
   •  British and Irish poetry, late 19th century to present
   •  LGBTQ literature, queer studies
   •  creative writing, poetry

Recently Taught Courses

   •  Creative Writing and Community Engagement
   •  Irish Literature
   •  LGBTQ+ Studies
   •  LGBTQ Literature
   •  Literature and AIDS
   •  Sexuality and Justice (honors seminar)
   •  Queer Forms (graduate seminar)
   •  Queer Time, Irish Time (graduate seminar)

Activities

With co-editor Margot Backus, I have just completed work on annotated bibliography of Irish queer literature for Oxford University Press. I saw a staged reading of my first play, Ark, in spring 2024, and I plan to develop it further for a stage production. From 2015-2022, I served as the Poet Laureate for the City of Columbia, South Carolina. In that position, I focused on literary art as public art and worked to create venues for regional and young writers. Because of this work, I have also developed courses connecting creative writing to community engagement—most recently an honors course that included a field trip to the O Miami Poetry Festival. I served as the director of the USC Women’s and Gender Studies Program (now Department) 2014-2019 and 2021-2022. I have just been selected as a Pearce Faculty Fellow for the USC Honors College. At present I also serve on the steering committee for Historic Columbia’s LGBTQ Columbia History Initiative.

Accolades 

   • A pooka in Arkansas (2023) selected as 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection winner
   •  USC Women’s & Gender Studies Teaching Award, 2023
   •  SC Governor's Award for the Arts, 2022
   •  Breakthrough Leadership in Research Award, USC, 2022
   •  Publication in The Forward Book of Poetry 2021: The Best Poems from the Forward Prizes  (London: Bookmark, 2020)
   •  Artist Residency, Instituto Sacatar, Itaparia, Bahia, Brazil, Nov 2019 – Jan 2020
   •  Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow, 2019
   •  Distinguished Alumnus Award 2017, Alpha Chi National College Honor Society
   •  William B. Neenan Visiting Fellowship in Irish Studies, Boston College Ireland, 2017
   •  Richmond Visiting Faculty Research Fellow, Richmond the American International University, London, 2016
   •  Michael A. Hill Outstanding Faculty Award, South Carolina Honors College, USC, 2016
   •  SC Arts Commission Fellowship (prose writing), SC Arts, 2011
   •  Irish American Cultural Institute Visiting Research Fellowship in Irish Studies, Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland in Galway, 2010

Research

My scholarship falls at the intersection on Irish studies and sexuality studies, with recent publications on queer migrant writing, queer archives, and gay rugby. I have also published six books of poetry. I am currently juggling three projects: a study of queer temporalities and Irish culture; a memoir based in part in my residency in Brazil, and a new collection of poetry.

Publications 

BOOKS
   •  A pooka in Arkansas (poems), The Word Works, 2023.
   •  A story of the city: poems occasional and otherwise, 2015-2022 (poems from work as city poet laureate), Muddy Ford Press, 2023.
   •  Ark (poems), Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016.
   •  Nest (poems), Salmon Poetry, 2014.
   •  Prodigal: Variations (poems), Lethe Press, 2011.
   •  Signals (poems), winner of the SC Poetry Book Prize, University of SC Press, 2008.
   •  Tiresian Poetics: Modernism, Sexuality, Voice 1888-2001, Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2008. as editor
   •  Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio(radio essays), with Candace Chellew Hodge, Hub City Press, 2010.

SELECTED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
   •  “Babble.” In Handbook of Poetic Forms. Jessica Bundschuh and Irmtraud Huber, eds. De Gruyter, 2025. Forthcoming.
   •  “‘Here I stand with you’: Queering Marriage in Irish Poetry.” In Teaching Modern Irish Poetry in English, MLA teaching volume. Guinn Batten and Anna Teekell, eds. Modern Language Association, 2024. In press.
   •  “Under the Sign of the Clock: Queer Time, AIDS Time, and Clery’s Clock,” Review of Irish Studies in Europe, 2023.
   •  “The Irish Bachelor.” In The Edinburgh Companion to Irish Modernism. Maud Ellmann, Sian White, and Vicki Mahaffey, eds. Edinburgh UP, 2021. 
   •  “Queering, Querying Irish Studies.” In Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies. Renée Fox, Mike Cronin, and Brian Ó Conchubhair, eds. Routledge, 2020.
   •  “The Queer Contemporary: Time and Temporality in Queer Writing.” In The New Irish Studies (Twenty-First Century Critical Revisions). Paige Reynolds, ed. Cambridge UP, 2020.
   •  “Underground Diasporas: Masculinity and Sexuality in Migrant Cultures,” Performance Ireland, 2017.
   •  “Cuckoos, or a natural history of the gay child,”Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies (Notre Dame), special issue on Ireland in Psychoanalysis, edited by Joseph Valente, Seán Kennedy, and Macy Todd, 2017.
   •  “[W]here and how he loves: reading Pearse Hutchinson now,”Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies, special issue on Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality, edited by Sinead Kennedy, Abby Palko, and Moynagh Sullivan, 2017.
   •  “AIDS and The Hunger: Fiction, Biopolitics, and the Historical Imagination,” The Irish Review 53, special issue Biopolitical Ireland, edited by George Legg and Niamh Campbell, 2016.
   •  “Even the animals in the fields: Animals, Queers, Violence.” In Animals in Irish Literature and Culture. Kathryn Kirkpatrick and Borbála Faragó, eds. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
   •  “Transnationalism, Sexuality, and Irish Gay Poetry: Frank McGuinness, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Padraig Rooney.” In Where Motley Is Worn: Transnational Irish Literatures. Amanda Tucker and Moira Casey, eds. Cork UP, 2014.
   •  “Get Your Kit On: Gender, Sexuality, and Gay Rugby in Ireland,” Éire-Ireland 48:1&2 (spring-summer 2013), special issue on sport and Ireland, edited by Michael Cronin and Brian Ó Conchubhair, 2013
   •  “Fellow Feeling: or Mourning, Metonymy, Masculinity.” In Peter Fallon: Poet, Publisher, Editor, and Translator. Richard Russell, ed. Irish Academic Press, 2013.

POETRY - RECENT AND SELECTED
   •  Poems online at The Academy of American Poets.
   •  “Postcards from Arkansas,” “Postcards from Hambidge,” “Praise Song, June 2020,” “Stitches,” and “Vanishing” [5 poems], in Southern Voices: The Power of Place, edited by Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer. Lamar University Press, 2024.
   •  “I dreamt I dwelt” and “Fairy tale [What you thought was a wolf],” The Stony Thursday Book 18 (winter 2022). Limerick Arts, 2022.
   •  “Viscous,” in Queer Nature. Michael Walsh, ed. Pittsburg PA: Autumn House, 2022.
   •  “Self-portrait as a series of science projects,” Impossible Archetype 16,
   •  “On Meeting a Pooka: Five Poems,” Irish University Review1 (May 2023), special issue Irish Gothic Studies Today. [Short essay with 4 poems from A pooka in Arkansas and “Those summer nights” commissioned for special issue.]
   •  “Butterscotch, Cocoa,” Impossible Archetype 14 (Aug 2023): 21-22.
   •  “Silent caller, dorm telephone,” StorySouth 53 (spring 2022).
   •  “A pooka in Arkansas,” The Forward Book of Poetry 2021: The Best Poems from the Forward Prizes. London: Bookmark, 2020.
   •  “Easy,” in Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance, edited by Sandra Beasley. U of Georgia P, 2018.
   •  “When I was a young animal” and “Country of origin” in Untold Arkansas. Erin Wood, ed. Et Alia, 2018.
   •  “Thirst,” South Carolina Voices: Poetry and Prose, produced by SC Arts Commission. Athenaeum Press, Coastal Carolina University, 2018.
   •  “Ark,” Poetry Ireland Review, 2008.
   •  “Sunday morning, Wadmalaw,” in The Seagull Reader: Poems, 2nd ed. Joseph Kelly, ed. W. W. Norton, 2007.
   •  “Sacrifice,” in Best New Poets 2007: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers. Natasha Trethewey, ed. Meridian, 2007.

SELECTED REVIEWS AND OTHER ESSAYS
   •  “Jerome Leaning Over His Book” (winner of the 2022 Best Spiritual Literature Award, nonfiction). In Best Spiritual Literature vol 8, 2023. Luke Hankins, Nathan Poole, and Karen Tucker, eds. Orison Books, 2023. 37-47.
   •  “A language of flowers,” Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies1 (April 2022): 35-37.
   •  “Bridges,” Channel [Irish environmental journal], 25 April 2022.
   •  “What the Owl Says: Politics, Empathy, and Complicity in Edward Thomas’s ‘The Owl,’” with “Flood” [poem], American Poets: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets 61 (fall-winter 2021):13-18.
   •  Review of The History of Marriage Equality in Ireland: A Social Revolution Begins by Sonja Tiernan (Manchester UP, 2020), Estudios Irlandese (Spanish Association for Irish Studies) no. 16 (March 2021): 262-265.
   •  “The Sound of Where I’m From: What Is Delta Poetry?” [introductory essay for special issue on Delta poetry], Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies1 (spring-April 2019): 5-7.
   •  “Saint Sebastian in South Carolina,” Gay and Lesbian Review, Worldwide 19.1 (Jan-Feb 2012): 24-26

RECENT PRESENTATIONS AND PANELS
   •  “Questions of form in the poetry of Gail McConnell,” American Conference for Irish Studies, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland, 21 June 2024.
   •  Participant, Roundtable on Christodoulos Makris, It Reeks of Radio, contemporary poetry roundtable series, American Conference for Irish Studies, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland, 20 June 2024
   •  Chair and participant, Roundtable on Annemarie ní Chuirreáin’s Bloodroot and Seán Hewitt’s Tongues of Fire, contemporary poetry roundtable series, American Conference for Irish Studies, San Jose State University, San Jose, California, 8 June 2023.
   •  “Reframing the Irish LGBTQ Tradition: James Brennan’s Seaman,” American Conference for Irish Studies, San Jose State University, San Jose, California, 8 June 2023.
   •  “Beyond Damron’s Guide: Harnessing Memory and Archives for a More Inclusive LGBTQ+ History,” with Katherine Allen (Historic Columbia) and Terrance Henderson (artist), discussing LGBTQ+ Columbia history initiative, To Be Determined: National Council on Public History, Atlanta GA, 14 April 2023.
   •  “Under the sign of the clock: queer time, AIDS time, and Clery’s clock,” Ireland Sexualities in History, University of Edinburgh (virtual), 11 July 2022.
   •  “Colm Ó Clúbhán, and a theatre of the Irish queer diaspora,” Outing the Past Conference, Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 31 March 2019.

OTHER
   •  “On Return & Redemption: Ed Madden in Conversation with Kwame Dawes,” interview in conjunction with Michigan Quarterly Review special issue on Caregiving, Heather McHugh, ed. MQR website, 1 Oct 2018.
   •  “How to Lift Him,” TedXColumbiaSC, 20 Jan 2014.