Rebecca Dunham

rebecca.dunham@uni.edu

http://www.uni.edu/dunhamr/

 

 

1104 Clay Street

Cedar Falls, IA 50613

(319) 277-7694

 

Department of English

206 Baker Hall

University of Northern Iowa

Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0502

(319) 273-2639

 

Current Position:

 

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Department of English Language and Literature,

University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA. August 2006 to present.

 

Previous Position:

 

Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fellow in Poetry, Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. 2005-2006.

 

Education:                                                                                                         

 

Ph.D. in English (creative dissertation in poetry), University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. 2006.

            Primary Area: Twentieth-Century American Literature

Secondary Area: American Long Poem and Poetic Sequence

M.F.A. Creative Writing, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. 2001.

M.A. English and Writing, Hollins University, Roanoke, VA. 1996.

B.A. English, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. 1994.

 

Awards:

 

National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry, 2007

MacDowell Colony residency, Peterborough, NH, scheduled for May 2007.

Summer Fellowship Recipient, University of Northern Iowa, scheduled for June-July 2007.

Finalist, Aviary, Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham Prize and Felix Pollak Prize.

T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, Truman State University Press, Kirksville, MO, 2006.

Finalist, Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, Crab Orchard Review, 2005 and 2006.

Nominee, Pushcart Prize, 2005 and 2006.

Indiana Review Poetry Prize Winner, 2005.

Academy of American Poets Award Winner, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005.

Creative Writing Fellow, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001-2005.

D.R. Francis Fellow, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001-2002.

Outstanding Graduate Student Award, George Mason University, 2001.

Mary Roberts Rinehart Prize, George Mason University, 2000.

So to Speak Poetry Contest Prize-Winner, 1999.

Jacaranda International Poetry Competition Prize-Winner, 1996.

Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets Fellow, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, 1994.

 

Publications:

                                                                                                           

Books:

 

The Miniature Room (book of poems),

Truman State University Press, September 2006.

Under review: Aviary (book of poems),

            At various presses.

Finalist in Wisconsin Press’s 2006 Brittingham Prize and Felix Pollak Prize.

Finalist in Tupelo Press’s 2006 July Open Reading Period.

                                                                                                           

Individual Poems:

 

“Flora Londinensis” and “Coulomb’s Law,” West Branch (accepted).

“Mary Wollstonecraft in Flight,” Borderlands (accepted).

“Curator of Fruit,” Poetry Daily, January 5, 2007.

“Aviary” and “The Flight Cage,” Gulf Coast (accepted).

“Oubliette,” North American Review (accepted).

“Sarah Good, Imprisoned,” The Iowa Review (accepted).

“Terra Incognita” and “Reading a Biography of Akhmatova at 30,000 Feet,” Crab Orchard Review

            (accepted).

“Ergot Theory,” Field 75, Fall 2006.

“Mrs. Stevens,” The Antioch Review 64 (3), Summer 2006.

“Ghazal in Minium,” Natural Bridge (accepted).

“The Eye,” Cimarron Review 157, Fall 2006.

“Phial” and “Extremity,” Crazyhorse 69, Spring 2006.

“A Leaf, A Hare,” AGNI 63.

            “A Leaf, A Hare” also on Verse Daily, January 23, 2007.

“The Soap Bubble,” Hawai’i Pacific Review 20, 2006.

“Putting Him to Bed,” Sycamore Review 18 (1), Winter/Spring 2006.

“End Note,” Phoebe 35 (1), Spring 2006.

“Ontology of the Miniature Room” and “God Measuring the World with a Compass,” Crab Orchard Review 11 (1), Winter/Spring 2006.

“Ontology of the Miniature Room” also on Verse Daily, May 12, 2006.                    

“Summer,” Bellingham Review 29 (1), Spring 2006.

“Self-Portrait as Miniature,” The Cream City Review 30 (1), Spring 2006.

“Box Series,” Indiana Review 27 (2), Winter 2005.

“Yard Elegy,” American Literary Review, Fall 2005.     

“Oxidation,” North American Review 290 (5), Sept./Oct. 2005.

“Letter to My Love, on Autumn’s First Hard Frost,” Mid-American Review 26(1), 2006.

“Tableau,” Blackbird 4 (2), Fall 2005, http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v4n2/poetry/dunham_r/.    

“Harem of Saint Marcia,” Gulf Coast 18 (1), Winter/Spring 2006.

“Elegy I Do Not Want to Write,” Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review 25, Spring/Summer 2005.

“The Oval Window” and “Poem in the Manner of Frida Kahlo,” Analecta 31, 2005.

“Chardin to His Subject,” “Still Life,” and “Detail,” Elixir 5(1), 2005.

“Wittgenstein’s Carpet,” Natural Bridge 14, Fall 2005.

“Two Photographs” and “Letter-Elegy,” Valparaiso Review 7(1), 2005, http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/v7n1.html.

“Black Frost,” Dogwood 5, Spring 2005.

“St. Anne to Her Daughter,” Gulf Coast 17(2), Summer/Fall 2005.

“Sunday Dinner at Miller Avenue,” Vermont Literary Review 9(1), Winter/Spring 2005.

“The Tempest,” “Galileo’s Daughter,” and “Catherine Blake,” Beloit Poetry Journal 55(3), 2005.

            “Catherine Blake” also on Verse Daily, March 4, 2005.

“Toast of the Terrarium,” Valparaiso Review 5 (1), Fall/Winter 2003-2004.

“Antidote,” “Trompe l’oeil,” and “The Eighth Sense,” Elixir 3, 2003.

“Dear André,” Delmar 9, 2003.

“Black Out,” Poet Lore 96(4), Winter 2001-2002.

“Rite of Spring,” Natural Bridge 5, Spring 2001.

“Corner of 2nd and Elm,” Cimarron Review 133, Fall 2000.

“Lake Effect” and “El Terremoto de Oaxaca,”Poet Lore 95(1), Spring 2000.

“Last Call,” So to Speak 9(2), Fall/Winter 1999.

“Night Ferry,” The Cream City Review 24(1), Fall 1999.

“Other Women’s Babies” and “Double-Cross,” So to Speak 9(1), Spring 1999.

“The Drowned” and “Letter From My Brother,” Phoebe 28(1), Spring 1999.

“Memory,” Iris 37, Spring/Summer 1998.

“Early Morning at Our Beach House,” “The Silver Saddle,” and “Widower at Sunrise,” Gulf Coast 9(2), Spring/Summer 1997.

“Late Dinner, June,” Jacaranda 11, Spring 1996.

“Fish Chowder,” Sycamore Review 7(2), Summer 1995.

 

Reviews:

 

Review of The Clerk’s Tale by Spencer Reese (2004), The Missouri Review 27(3), Fall 2004.    

Review of The Cuckoo by Peter Streckfus (2004), The Missouri Review 27(2), Summer 2004.

Review of Isolato by Larissa Szporluk (2000) and Erotikon by Susan Mitchell (2000), Phoebe, 30(1), Spring 2001.

 

Essays:

 

“In the Dark, Here in the Dark,” TMR Online, November 2, 2004.

“Community Out of the Corner of Your Eye,” TMR Online, July 29, 2004.

“Bringing New Concepts of Authorship to the Introductory Literature Classroom,” e-matters, Fall 2000.      

 

Current Projects:

 

Matchsticks: a chapbook of poems that investigates the dynamics of gender, race, and power within the structure of total institutions, specifically as the Jonestown tragedy of 1978

 

 “A Conversation with Nadine Sabra Meyer”: an interview with the author of The Anatomy Theater (2006).

 

“The Well-Researched Urn: Poetry in an Electronic Age”: a craft and creative writing pedagogy essay.

 

Readings:

 

Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA, scheduled for July 10, 2007.

University of Northern Iowa Reading Series, Cedar Falls, IA, scheduled for April 5, 2007.

University of Missouri-Columbia Reading Series, Columbia, MO, scheduled for April 3, 2007.

Radio Interview and Reading, KHKE, Cedar Falls, IA, December 11, 2006.

Truman State University Reading Series, Kirksville, MO, November 14, 2006.

University of Wisconsin Glass Bookcase Reading Series, English Department, Madison, WI, November 6, 2006.

Final Thursday Reading Series, Cedar Falls, IA, September 28, 2006.

University of Wisconsin Reading Series, English Department, Madison, WI, Spring 2006.

Legacy Reading Series, Columbia, MO, Spring 2005.

 

Teaching Experience:

 

University of Northern Iowa:

            College Reading and Writing.

            Introduction to Literature (Modernist Literature).

            Beginning Poetry Writing.

            Advanced Poetry Workshop (graduate and undergraduate students).

            Craft of Poetry (graduate and undergraduate students).

 

University of Wisconsin-Madison (Visiting Writer, 2005-2006):

            Beginning Creative Writing (poetry and fiction).

            Intermediate Poetry Writing.

 

University of Missouri-Columbia (Teaching Assistant, 2001-2003):

            Exposition and Argumentation.

            Beginning Poetry Writing.

            Intermediate Poetry Writing (2 semesters).

 

George Mason University (Teaching Assistant, 1998-2001):

            Composition.

            Composition (linked to Introduction to Psychology).

            Reading and Writing about Texts.

            Texts and Contexts: Women in Literature.

            Introduction to Creative Writing.

            Introduction to Poetry Writing (prerequisite: English 396).

 

Hollins College (Adjunct Instructor, 1997):

            Beginning Poetry Writing.

 

Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke, VA (Adjunct Instructor, 1996-1997):

            Composition.

            Introduction to Literature.

 

Areas of Teaching Interest:

 

Poetry and Poetics; Craft of Poetry; Modernism (American and British); American Literature 1865-present; Twentieth-Century American Poetry;  American Women Writers; American Long Poem and Poetic Sequence; The Lyric; Creative Writing Pedagogy; and Literature of Witness.

 

Academic Service:

 

Assistant Editor, North American Review, University of Northern Iowa, 2006-2007.

Coordinator, “Emerging Writers Reading Series,” University of Northern Iowa, 2006-2007.

Co-Facilitator, “Post-MA in English Job Workshop,” University of Northern Iowa,

            November 27, 2006.

Faculty Advisor, Graduate Reading Series, University of Northern Iowa, 2006-2007.

Faculty Advisor, Sigma Tau Delta, University of Northern Iowa, 2006-2007.

Member, Women’s and Gender Studies Advisory Board, University of Northern Iowa.

Member, Ad-Hoc Graduate Faculty Committee on Comprehensive Exams, University of Northern

Iowa, 2006-2007.

Visiting Writer, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, November 14, 2006.

Judge, Joseph A. Lohman III Poetry Prize, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 2006.

Judge, Selina Terry Poetry Award, University of Northern Iowa, 2006.

Member, Writer’s Committee, English Department, University of Wisconsin, 2005-2006.

Preliminary Judge, Brittingham and Pollak Prizes in Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.

Preliminary Judge, Larry Levis Poetry Prize, The Missouri Review, Columbia, MO, 2004.

 

Professional Experience:

 

Assistant Editor, North American Review, Fall 2006-present.

Senior Poetry Staff, The Missouri Review 2004-2005.

Poetry Editor, Center, Center for the Literary Arts, English Department, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002-2003.

Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor, Phoebe, Fairfax, VA, 1999-2001.

Managing Editor, The Comparatist, Fairfax, VA, 1998-1999.

Copy and Wire Editor, Roanoke Times and World News, Roanoke, VA, 1995-1997.