About

 

I am a poet and educator living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. A recent graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arkansas, I have experience teaching workshops and classes to students of a wide variety of ages and backgrounds.

Much of my own writing focuses on themes of poverty and the disappearance of a local culture in rural areas–specifically (but not exclusively) in northeastern Oklahoma. I am fascinated by the relationship between the past and present–how the present is informed by the past, how we see the past through the lens of our present concerns. This is especially relevant to me now that I am a father, as I watch the world I grew up in changing rapidly with current technology, knowing the experiences I had will seem as foreign to my daughter as my father’s experiences growing up as the son of a migrant farm worker during the Depression seem to me.

In addition, I am fascinated by subculturalism and music. My current project is a book-length speculative poem intended for young adults that follows two teenage siblings in a war-torn European city in the early 1960s.

See my Arkansas Arts Council page for description of original curriculum.