Cate Marvin
Professional Title: M.F.A. Creative Writing Faculty
Areas of Academic Focus and Expertise:
Poetry
Representative List of Recent Courses Taught:
Distance-Learning Courses:
· Creative Writing I-IV
· Craft and Reflection I-III
· Graduating Seminar Preparation
· Creative Thesis
Residency Seminars:
· A Taut Stitch: On the Poetic Line
· The Pleasures of the Door: On Poetic Closure
Education: B.A. Writing and Literature, Marlboro College; M.F.A. Creative Writing, Poetry at University of Houston; Ph.D., English and Comparative Literature from University of Cincinnati
Representative List of Recent Publications / Exhibitions:
Books of Poetry:
World's Tallest Disaster (2001)
Fragment of the Head of a Queen (2007)
Essays:
“An Apology for Women’s Literature” co-authored with Carol Muske-Dukes for the Huffington Post.
“VIDA Counts The Rumpus” co-authored with Susan Steinberg for The Rumpus.
Co-editor:
Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century
Teaching Philosophy: To my mind, poetry is perhaps the most precise creative genre, in that the writer has the options to create his or her own rules, and while this is certainly a liberty, it is one that requires skill and the writer's awareness of his or her responsibility to the reader. I'm particularly invested in the formal strategies poems may undertake, the integrity of the line, the rearrangement and/or derangement of language and syntax, and invention. I believe all writers should have a solid foundational knowledge of the work of their predecessors, so that their own poetry may take part in larger, ongoing literary conversations.
My areas of expertise are Twentieth-Century American and British poetry, the theory of Poetics, and Contemporary American Women's poetry.
Awards: 2008 Texas Institute of Letters Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for the Best Book of Poetry; 2007 Whiting Writer's Award; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; Kathryn A. Morton Prize; Kate Tufts Discovery Prize.
Current Affiliations: College of Staten Island, City University of New York; Co-founder and co-director of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
Website:www.catemarvin.com