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Mary Cross
Associate Professor, Adjunct
Contact
Bio
Associate Professor, Adjunct (1999) Education: BA, 1981, Iowa State University; MFA, 1985, Iowa Writers' Workshop. Books: Rooms, Which Were People (Ohio State UP). Publications: Crazyhorse; Hotel Amerika; The Sun; Ploughshares; Southern Poetry Review; American Poetry Review, and others. Online: Center for Humans and Nature; Minding Nature; featherproof press mini-book Radio: Eight Forty-Eight program; WBEZ Chicago Matters Series. Anthologized Work: City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Poems about Chicago (U of Iowa Press); City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness (U of Chicago Press). Exhibitions: Faculty Projects, Sullivan Gallery, SAIC. Awards: Finalist in Mason Jar Press 1729 Book Prize in Prose; Finalist in Stillhouse Press Book-Length Fiction Contest; Helen Hooven Santmyer Poetry Fund.
Current Interests
Text and image. Hybrid forms. Video essay/motion poem.
My current project is a hybrid memoir.
Personal Statement
I am a poet and short prose writer. I have advised with writers and studio artists from many departments who use text as a component in their work. My approach is student-centered and built upon active listening, as well as formulating questions and responses that inspire an important ongoing conversation. I welcome students at any point in their creative process, from intuitive impulses toward generating new work to developing and refining work-in-progress. Together we explore ways to identify and discover work that is uniquely theirs.