Rebecca Dunham

Rebecca Dunham

Rebecca Dunham is the author of Cold Pastoral and three previous collections of poems, including Glass Armonica, winner of the 2013 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, and The Miniature Room, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Kenyon Review, AGNI, and others. Her work has been supported through numerous fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and the Ruth Halls Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Dunham holds an MFA in Poetry from George Mason University and a PhD in English from the University of Missouri. She is currently Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Awards
Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Truman State University T.S. Eliot Prize
So to Speak Poetry Prize
Terrain.org Poetry Prize
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Books by Rebecca Dunham

Cold Pastoral
Poetry

Cold Pastoral

Poems
By
Rebecca Dunham

Deepwater Horizon, Hurricane Katrina, Flint: this is the litany of our time, and these are the events traced in these poems, invoking the poet as moral witness. Incorporating interviews and excerpts from government documents and other sources, this collection reveals what poetry can—and, perhaps, should—be, reflecting ourselves and our world back with gorgeous clarity.

Glass Armonica
Poetry

Glass Armonica

By
Rebecca Dunham

The winner of the 2013 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry probes the depths of the human psyche. These are poems spoken through and for the melancholic, the hysteric, the body dysmorphic—from Mary Glover to Lavinia Dickinson to Freud’s famed patient Dora—in a collection at once beautiful and unnerving.

Related Media

Watch: Poetry Speaks: Rebecca Dunham: Elegy, Sung In Dirt | Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Author Q & A

  • Question

    How would you describe Cold Pastoral?

    Milkweed Editions
    Answer

    The spine of Cold Pastoral is its documentation and meditation on the British Petroleum oil spill of 2010, as well as the legacy of the devastation wrought in its wake on both humans and the environment. The poetry is grounded in the lyric tradition of the pastoral and elegy, but reworked to accommodate the language of field notes and interviews, many conducted by the poet herself, as well as public documents like BP’s “Initial Exploration Report.”

     

    While grounded in a consideration of the Macondo oil spill, Cold Pastoral expands its scope to consider other ecological issues, as well: climate change, species extinction, Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds, and even the contemporary water crisis in Flint, MI. The book’s fusing of these seemingly disparate topics highlights the interconnectedness of them all.

  • Question

    What prompted you to write Cold Pastoral?

    Milkweed Editions
    Answer

    I have always felt very invested in the natural world and concerned (an understatement!) about the impact of humans upon it. I have always hiked and camped, and even spent a summer in my 20s backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. Growing up on the coast of Maine, the ocean and the human interdependence on it has also been in the forefront of my mind.

     

    The book really began with my concern and outrage about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. My parents now live in this area, so when the spill happened, I think I felt more compelled to write about it than previous environmental disasters.

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