poems & essays
“Rise: An Essay” & “The Scat of It,” Elementals anthology, published by the Center for Humans and Nature, 2025.
“The Donkey Elegies: An Essay in Poems,” forthcoming in Environmental and Nature Writing, Volume II, Edited by Joe Wilkins, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026.
Excerpt from The Donkey Elegies: An Essay in Poems,” forthcoming in The New Sentience, a poetry anthology edited by Ashley Capps and Allison Titus, Trinity University Press, Fall 2025.
“Parable” won the 2024 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize and was published as part of the Academy of American Poet’s Poem-a-Day initiative. It later appeared in The Alaska Quarterly Review and is forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. III: Contemporary Appalachia, 2nd Edition, edited by William Wright, J. Bruce Fuller, and Jesse Graves.
“Rise,” an essay forthcoming in two anthologies, one from the University of Kentucky Press, another from the Center for Humans and Nature, 2024.
“How to Name a Bird,” Orion Magazine, Summer 2023.
“A Vegetarian’s Guide to Table Manners in Kentucky,” Dark Mountain, April 2023.
“Grace,” The Kenyon Review, Spring 2023.
“When Adam Ate From the Tree of Knowledge, All The Animals Ate From It, Too,” Between Paradise & Earth: Eve Poems, Orison Books, April 2023.
“Collective Nouns for the Anthropocene” and “Holding That Gaping Empty Till It Stills, or My Cat Harvey Milk,” Prairie Schooner, Spring 2022.
“On Memory & Survival,” Orion Magazine, Winter 2022. (essay also appears in Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World, University of Virginia Press, 2023, and received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart anthology.)
“Why Raccoons & Squirrels Take Only One Bite of Your Tomatoes,” The Global South, Indiana University Press, 2022
“My Happiness,” Plume, Forgiveness/Acceptance Issue, 2022
“Scare,” The Missouri Review, October 2021.
“Forgiveness: The Black Walnut,” Plant-Human Quarterly, 2022.
“The Donkey Elegies: An Excerpt,” Southern Cultures.
“Mercy,” “Against Despair,” “Self-Portrait as Land Snail,” “Wild Thing,” “Prayer to Be Still and Know,” “A Prayer to Talk to Animals,” “Fanny Linguistics,” “For My Grandmother’s Perfume,” “Black bird, red wing,” The Academy of American Poets
“A Prayer to Talk to Animals,” “For My Grandmother’s Feet, Swollen Again,” “An Invitation,” Smith College
Excerpt from The Donkey Elegies to celebrate an Honorable Mention in the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, The New England Poetry Club, October 2020.
“A Jonah," Norwegian Writer's Climate Campaign, August 2020. (Previously published in print in The Birmingham Poetry Review)
“When Adam Ate From The Tree of Knowledge, The Animals Ate From It, Too," VIDA Review, March 2020. Forthcoming in anthology about Eve published by Orison Books in 2021.
“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Saltine," On the Seawall, February 2020. This poem was originally commissioned by Rebecca Gayle Howell for an anthology response to a reissue of Don West's Clods of Southern Earth forthcoming from the University of Kentucky Press.
“The Terminal," On the Seawall, January 2020. This poem was originally commissioned by the Poetry Center at Smith College for the anthology The Map of Every Lilac Leaf: Poets Respond to the Smith College Museum of Art.
“Prayer to be Still and Know," Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, October 2019.
“Persimmons," About Place Journal, May 2019. Also forthcoming in Dark Mountain, Issue 17, England, 2020.
“Wild Thing,” “Self-Portrait as Land Snail,” “The Scat of It,” Poem-of-The Week, May 2019.
“Self-Portrait as Land Snail," The Bellingham Review, 2018.
“To Those Who Were Our First Gods: An Offering," (with audio) Rattle Magazine, December 2018.
“The Scat of It," Thrush Poetry Journal, November 2018.
“Hellbender," The Oxford American, the North Carolina Music Issue, November 2018.
“Self-Portrait as Eastern Wood Rat," TSR: The Southamptom Review, July 2018. Written for and published in an anthology, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, edited by Rose McLarney, 2019. Forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. III: Contemporary Appalachia, 2nd Edition, edited by William Wright, J. Bruce Fuller, and Jesse Graves.
“Zoo Prayers," Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, The Chinese & American Environmental Writing Issue, 2018.
“MRI" and "Rothko Confessions," Fifth Wednesday Journal, Spring 2018. ("Rothko Confessions" won the 2018 Editor's Prize in Poetry, selected by Jared Smith)
“Mis/Conception," winner of the PSA's 2018 Emily Dickinson Award, chosen by Lynn Melnick.
“Wild Thing," Talking River, Lewis-Clark State, and Verse Daily, 2018.
“Against Despair: The Kid Goat," Thrush Poetry Journal, January 2018.
“The Extended Stay," Poetry International, 2018.
“Mercy," (with audio), Norwegian Writers' Climate Campaign, Fall 2017. Also will appear in February 2021 issue of Minding Nature.
“A Prayer to Talk to Animals," (with audio) Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, July 2017. Also published in Poems for the Planet: From Inspiration to Action, edited by Elizabeth Coleman, Copper Canyon Press, April 2019; The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday, by Sharon Blackie, September Publishing, 2018; and The Orison Anthology, Volume 3, 2018, edited by Luke Hankins, Nathan Poole, and Karen Tucker.
“Beastiary: Thasos, Greece," Michigan Quarterly Review, 2016.
“The Evolution of a Kiss," Guernica, October 2016. (Also included in The Kiss: Intimacies From Writers, an anthology published by W.W. Norton, and in arc 28, a literary journal published out of Israel, in 2020.)
“Skeleton of a Ram, or Letter to My Wife After Bickering in Paradise" Asheville Poetry Review, Spring 2017.
“The Deer," Honorable Mention of the 2015 Gulf Coast Bartheleme Prize judged by Steve Almond.
“The Baby Possum," Punctuate Magazine of Columbia College Chicago, 2016.
publications from Fanny Says:
“Fanny Says How To Make Potato Salad," Southern Foodways Alliance, 2018.
“For My Grandmother's Perfume, Norell," Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, 2013, and The New York Times, 2018.
“My Book, in Birds," "To My Grandmother's Ghost, Flying with Me on a Plane," and "An Invitation for My Grandmother," Anthology of LGBTQ Literature from Appalachia, edited by Jeff Mann and Julia Watts, Vandalia Press / West Virginia University Press, forthcoming 2018.
“Fanny Linguistics: How to Say What You Mean," "For My Grandmother's Feet, Swollen Again," and "Fanny Linguistics: Superstition," Vandal Poem of the Day, 2017.
“The Dead," Best American Poetry 2017, edited by David Lehman and Natasha Trethewey (originally published in Cave Wall, Fall 2016).
“For My Grandmother's Feet, Swollen Again," Vandall Poem of the Day, January 2017, The New York Times, August 2019.
“Dixie Highway," Brain Mill Press, April 2016.
“Flitter" & "An Invitation for My Grandmother" Gwarlingo (posted below review), April 2015.
“Pepsi," broadside excerpt for Broadsided, April 2015.
“Fanny Linguistics: Nickole," Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, 2015.
“Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit," Midway Journal, 2014.
“Fuck," The Oxford American, 2014.
“Crisco," The Literary Review, 2014.
“Clorox," The Wide Shore, 2014.
“A Prayer For The Self-Made Man," San Pedro Review, 2014.
“Fanny Says How To Be A Lady," storySouth, 2013.
“Sweet Silver," storySouth, 2013.
“Pepsi," Waccamaw, 2013 (later included in Waccamaw: A 10-Year Retrospective anthology, 2018).
“Go Put on Your Face," JMWW, 2012.
“How To Become A Dyke, Step Three, Birds," The Los Angeles Review, 2011.
“A Translation For The Spiritual Mediator. . .,": The Cortland Review, 2005.
publications from Sister:
“Footling," Verse Daily, 2008.
“What I Did, II," Beatrice, 2008.
“Footling," "How She Conceived," "1979," Reading Between A& B Series, 2007.
“1979" and "The Root Woman," Chautauqua Literary Journal, 2007.
“Speak & Spell," Another Chicago Magazine, 2007.
“How She Conceived," 32 Poems, 2006.
miscellaneous poems:
“Inauguration Day," published with Rise Up Review & in two anthologies Poets Speak (while we still can) & Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump's America, 2018.
“Trump's Tic Tacs," published in thre anthologies—Truth To Power: Writers Respond To The Rhetoric of Hate & Fear & If You can Hear This: Poems in Protest of an American Inauguration, & Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump's America, 2018.
“No Union More Profound," co-written with Jessica Jacobs, The Oxford American, 2015.
“The Girl Offers Up Her Resignation": Memorious, 2014.
“Step One, September": Connotation Press, 2012.
“Black Bird, Red Wing": Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, 2011.
“A Diet Plan That Works": Numero Cinq, 2010.
“How To Seduce Superman": Tusculum Review, 2010.
“Monarch & Mulberry": Guernica Magazine, 2009.
“Saint Michael of Valu-Mart" and "Some Facts About A Cow": Diagram Magazine, 2007.