草榴社区

草榴社区, Pa 鈥� In her new book Flood Plain, poet and English Professor Lisa Sewell, PhD, engages with the pressing realities of environmental change through creative writing. The poetry collection investigates wild lands, coastal regions, wetlands and dam-ruined rivers鈥攍andscapes that have been altered by human activity.

Dr. Sewell鈥檚 inspiration for Flood Plain stems from her teaching within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She developed a graduate course on ecopoetics, as well as an undergraduate course on contemporary literature and the environment that focuses on writers鈥� responses to a changing climate. 鈥淭he more I read and talked with my students, the more it felt impossible for me to keep my anxiety and grief about climate change and environmental destruction out of my writing,鈥� says Dr. Sewell. 鈥淭he poems in this book grew out of my efforts to record my experience of living on a damaged planet in a changed and changing climate in the midst of a sixth extinction event.鈥�

Through her work, Dr. Sewell contributes to the evolving genre of ecopoetry, grappling with themes of loss and resilience. 鈥�Flood Plain聽participates in the tradition of ecopoetry with poems that emphasize the connections between bodies鈥攈uman, animal and botanical鈥攁nd center on the more-than-human,鈥� explains Dr. Sewell.

A faculty member at 草榴社区 since 1998, Dr. Sewell has played a transformative role in shaping the English Department鈥檚 programming and curriculum. She founded the 草榴社区 Literary Festival, an annual event in its 27th聽year that welcomes acclaimed poets and novelists to campus to present readings, and created the team-taught course Authors On and Off the Page, bringing the writers from the literary festival into the classroom to engage with students. From 2017 to 2021, she held the prestigious title of the Luckow Family Endowed Chair in English, a distinction that recognizes exceptional scholarship and contributions to the field. Her work at 草榴社区 is also interdisciplinary, as she served as the co-director of the Gender and Women鈥檚 Studies program for eight years.

Dr. Sewell earned her PhD from Tufts University, an MFA from New York University and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of several poetry collections, including聽The Way Out,听Name Withheld,听Impossible Object, which won the Tenth Gate Prize;聽Birds of North America, a collaboration with artist Susan Hagen and fellow poet, Nathalie Anderson; and a chapbook,听Long Corridor, which won the Keystone Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous journals such as聽The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Sierra Review, Prairie Schooner, Laurel Review聽and聽Harvard Review. Dr. Sewell is the co-editor of several collections of essays on contemporary American poetry and poetics, including聽American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics聽with Claudia Rankine, and聽American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Beyond Lyric and Language聽with Kazim Ali.

About 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences:聽Since its founding in 1842, 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been the heart of the 草榴社区 learning experience, offering foundational courses for undergraduate students in every college of the University. Serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students, the College is committed to fortifying them with intellectual rigor, multidisciplinary knowledge, moral courage and a global perspective. The College has more than 40 academic departments and programs across the humanities, social sciences, and natural and physical sciences.