Landscapes of Our Hearts: How Culture Informs Personal Experience
What binds us together? What sets us apart? Three poets explore these questions through very different lenses but with equal urgency and timeliness. JANUARY GILL O’NEIL (Glitter Road) writes joy as an act of resistance against the backdrop of her time in Oxford, Mississippi. JOSÉ OLIVAREZ (Promises of Gold, longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award) explores love in its many forms alongside the complexities of the American Dream. KATE PARTRIDGE (Thine) couples climate change and queer parenthood, observing the ways in which our changing landscape affects our most intimate relationships.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOSÉ OLIVAREZ is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by the Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he coedited the poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext. He cohosts the poetry podcast The Poetry Gods. LEARN MORE
JANUARY GILL O'NEIL was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and earned her BA from Old Dominion University and an MFA from New York University. She is the author of Glitter Road, Rewilding, recognized by Mass Center for the Book as a notable poetry collection for 2018; Misery Islands, winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and Underlife. The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O'Neil was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She is an associate professor of English at Salem State University and is board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (2022-2024). She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts. LEARN MORE
KATE PARTRIDGE is the author of two poetry collections: Thine and Ends of the Earth. Her poems have appeared in Copper Nickel, Field, Michigan Quarterly Review, Yale Review, and other journals. She is an assistant professor at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. LEARN MORE
HOST
EMILIA PHILLIPS (they/them) is the author of five poetry collections from the University of Akron Press, including Nonbinary Bird of Paradise (2024) and Embouchure (2021), and four chapbooks. Their poetry, creative nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared widely. They are an Associate Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of English; MFA in Writing Program; and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at UNC Greensboro.