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

Areas of Specialization

   •  Irish literature and culture
   •  British and Irish poetry (late 19th century to present)
   •  LGBTQ literature, sexuality studies, history of sexuality
   •  creative writing, poetry

Recently Taught Courses

   •  Creative Writing, Voice, and Community
   •  LGBTQ Studies
   •  Creative Writing
   •  Irish Literature
   •  LGBTQ Literature
   •  Sexualities and Justice (honors seminar)
   •  Queer Temporalities
   •  Sex, Gender, and Nation in Irish Literature
   •  Queer Time, Irish Time

Activities

I currently serve as the Poet Laureate for the City of Columbia, South Carolina. In that position, I have tried to imagine literary arts as public art and to create venues for regional writers, especially young writers. Because of this work, many of my creative writing classes have a community engagement element. I am interim director of the USC Women’s and Gender Studies Program (2021-2022), after having served as program director 2014-2019. At present I also serve on the steering committee for Historic Columbia’s LGBTQ Columbia History Initiative.

Accolades 

   •  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
   •  South Carolina Poetry Book Prize 2007, for Signals
   •  Michael Lynch Service Award, Modern Language Association, Gay and Lesbian Caucus, 2001.

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 four books of poetry. I am currently juggling three projects: a study of queer and marginal masculinities in Irish culture; a memoir based in part in my residency in Brazil, and a new collection of poetry.

Selected Publications 

BOOKS
   •  Ark (poems), Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016.
   •  Nest (poems), Salmon Poetry, 2014.
   •  Prodigal: Variations (poems), Lethe Press, 2011.
   •  Signals (poems), University of SC Press,
   •  Tiresian Poetics: Modernism, Sexuality, Voice 1888-2001l, Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2008.

as editor
   •  Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio (radio essays), with Candace Chellew Hodge, Hub City Press, 2010.

BOOK CHAPTERS
   •  “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.
   •  “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.
   •  “Fellow Feeling: or Mourning, Metonymy, Masculinity.” In Peter Fallon: Poet, Publisher, Editor, and Translator. Richard Russell, ed. Irish Academic Press, 2013.

jOURNAL ARTICLES
   •  “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.
   •  “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.

POETRY - RECENT AND SELECTED
   •  Poems online at The Academy of American Poets.
   •  “When it began,” Impossible Archetype [Ireland], fall 2021.
   •  “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.
   •  “Dogwood,” “My husband who is not my husband,” and “Troubling the water,” MiPoesias. 2014.
   •  “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.
   •  “Light,” Los Angeles Review, 2005.

OTHER
   •  “Twenty-ten-25: 20 poets, 10 poems, 25 years of National Poetry Month,” Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with the Academy of American Poets, April 2021.
   •  “What the owl says: politics, empathy, and complicity in Edward Thomas’s ‘The Owl,’” American Poets: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, fall-winter 2021.
   •  “Public Poetry,” by Warren Hughes, Columbia Living Magazine, Sept-Oct 2020.
   •  “The sound of where I’m from: What Is Delta Poetry?” [introductory essay for special issue on Delta poetry], guest ed. Philip Kolin, Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, spring 2019.
   •  “On Return & Redemption: Ed Madden in Conversation with Kwame Dawes,” interview in conjunction with Michigan Quarterly Review special issue on Caregiving, Heather McHugh, ed. Michigan Quarterly Review website, 1 Oct 2018.
   •  “How to Lift Him,” TedXColumbiaSC, 20 Jan 2014.
   •  Gay Bridal Showers" [commentary on same-sex marriage activism], All Things Considered, National Public Radio, broadcast 29 March 2004.