Poets often see things other people don’t see, or else see things in an entirely different way than most people do. For example, garbage has become a hot literary topic.
“A lot of poets are writing now about garbage, compost and landfills,” said Christopher Anderson, PhD, poet and Pittsburg State University assistant professor in American literature and creative writing.
He’s been doing a lot of research on this, and last year attended conferences in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Victoria, British Columbia, where he presented the papers “Post-Apocalyptic Nostalgia: Wall-E, Garbage, and Technology” and “The Margins of Beauty: Ugliness, Garbage and Roadkill in American Ecopoetry.”
“Some poets find a weird sort of beauty in stuff most people find disgusting, and a lot of visual artists use various kinds of trash in their work,” Anderson said.
He’s currently doing a book on ugliness in the natural world in American poetry.
“People write about slugs and snakes and bacteria,” Anderson said. “Things die and decay, giving nutrients to new life. A lot of these poets find something sacred in these things, not just in beautiful things like trees and mountains.”
His research in this area has had an unexpected result.
“I’ve started to be influenced in my own poetry by the research I do,” Anderson said. “I’ve done some poems about things that are broken or decayed. But I have a lot of other poems just pointing out interesting things in the world, and some of them tell little stories. Some are funny, and some have a dark side.”
He’ll share a sample of his work when he and novelist Kathy De Grave, also a PSU English faculty member, present a free public reading in the fourth annual Faculty Reading at 8 p.m. today in the Balkans Room, Overman Student Center. A reception will follow.
“I’ve tried to pick out poems that appeal to a wide audience,” Anderson said. “I want to let students know that poetry isn’t some dead, dry thing that only exists in classrooms and books. It can be fun and fascinating.”
Born in Indiana, Anderson had never lived in this area before coming to PSU in fall 2008, but still had area ties.
“I had grandparents in Kansas City, and great-grandparents over by Joplin,” he said. “My maternal grandmother is buried in the cemetery at Weir. I never expected to be living in Kansas, so near to where half of my family came from.”
He lived in Boston for three years and worked in the mental health field before earning a doctorate from the University of Connecticut.
“Then I applied for jobs and ended up fitting in here at PSU,” Anderson said.
He said he is looking forward to reading with De Grave.
“When I lived in New England, there was all sorts of artistic stuff going on,” Anderson said. “It’s great that there’s such a writing community here, not just at the university but in the Pittsburg community.”
De Grave teaches American literature and fiction writing. She is the author of the novel “Company Woman” and the nonfiction book “Swindler, Spy, Rebel: The Confidence Woman in Nineteenth-Century America,” which was selected by “MS” magazine as a book to take into the 21st century. In 2004 her novel “In Real Life Women Don’t Play Jazz” was a semi-finalist for the William Wisdom/William Faulkner Award. She has started work on the sequel to another novel, “Fire Handed Down.”
De Grave was on sabbatical last fall, and spent the time writing in the Berkshires and visiting the homes of legendary authors Wharton, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, DuBois and Dickinson.
“This should be an exciting reading,” said Laura Lee Washburn, director of the PSU creative writing program. “I’ve seen images and ideas in their works that exist nowhere else.”
Their reading is sponsored by the PSU Distinguished Visiting Writers Series and the Student Fee Council.
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Poets often see things other people don’t see, or else see things in an entirely different way than most people do. For example, garbage has become a hot literary topic.
“A lot of poets are writing now about garbage, compost and landfills,” said Christopher Anderson, PhD, poet and Pittsburg State University assistant professor in American literature and creative writing.
He’s been doing a lot of research on this, and last year attended conferences in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Victoria, British Columbia, where he presented the papers “Post-Apocalyptic Nostalgia: Wall-E, Garbage, and Technology” and “The Margins of Beauty: Ugliness, Garbage and Roadkill in American Ecopoetry.”
“Some poets find a weird sort of beauty in stuff most people find disgusting, and a lot of visual artists use various kinds of trash in their work,” Anderson said.
He’s currently doing a book on ugliness in the natural world in American poetry.
“People write about slugs and snakes and bacteria,” Anderson said. “Things die and decay, giving nutrients to new life. A lot of these poets find something sacred in these things, not just in beautiful things like trees and mountains.”
His research in this area has had an unexpected result.
“I’ve started to be influenced in my own poetry by the research I do,” Anderson said. “I’ve done some poems about things that are broken or decayed. But I have a lot of other poems just pointing out interesting things in the world, and some of them tell little stories. Some are funny, and some have a dark side.”
He’ll share a sample of his work when he and novelist Kathy De Grave, also a PSU English faculty member, present a free public reading in the fourth annual Faculty Reading at 8 p.m. today in the Balkans Room, Overman Student Center. A reception will follow.
“I’ve tried to pick out poems that appeal to a wide audience,” Anderson said. “I want to let students know that poetry isn’t some dead, dry thing that only exists in classrooms and books. It can be fun and fascinating.”
Born in Indiana, Anderson had never lived in this area before coming to PSU in fall 2008, but still had area ties.
“I had grandparents in Kansas City, and great-grandparents over by Joplin,” he said. “My maternal grandmother is buried in the cemetery at Weir. I never expected to be living in Kansas, so near to where half of my family came from.”
He lived in Boston for three years and worked in the mental health field before earning a doctorate from the University of Connecticut.
“Then I applied for jobs and ended up fitting in here at PSU,” Anderson said.
He said he is looking forward to reading with De Grave.
“When I lived in New England, there was all sorts of artistic stuff going on,” Anderson said. “It’s great that there’s such a writing community here, not just at the university but in the Pittsburg community.”
De Grave teaches American literature and fiction writing. She is the author of the novel “Company Woman” and the nonfiction book “Swindler, Spy, Rebel: The Confidence Woman in Nineteenth-Century America,” which was selected by “MS” magazine as a book to take into the 21st century. In 2004 her novel “In Real Life Women Don’t Play Jazz” was a semi-finalist for the William Wisdom/William Faulkner Award. She has started work on the sequel to another novel, “Fire Handed Down.”
De Grave was on sabbatical last fall, and spent the time writing in the Berkshires and visiting the homes of legendary authors Wharton, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, DuBois and Dickinson.
“This should be an exciting reading,” said Laura Lee Washburn, director of the PSU creative writing program. “I’ve seen images and ideas in their works that exist nowhere else.”
Their reading is sponsored by the PSU Distinguished Visiting Writers Series and the Student Fee Council.
