poet and professor
Megan Kaminski is a poet and essayist. She is the author of three books of poetry, Gentlewomen (Noemi Press, 2020), Deep City (Noemi Press, 2015) and Desiring Map (Coconut Books, 2012) and two artists books, Prairie Divination (Sunseen Books, 2022), a book of illustrated essays and oracle deck, and Quietly Between (A Viewing Project. 2022), a co-authored collection of poetry and photography. Her place-based sound, poetry, and art installations have appeared at museums, public gardens, and libraries across the country, and her poetry and essays regularly appear in literary magazines and journals. Her social practice includes three edited volumes of nature poetry and art, as well as hundreds of community workshops, place-based poetry walks, and community readings, talks, and performances, all centered on co-creating with and within our ecosystems towards community connection, healing, and liberatory futures.
A Professor in the Creative Writing and Environmental Studies Programs with a courtesy appointment in Visual Art at the University of Kansas, she works at intersections of plant studies, somatics, and ceremony. Her creative work and scholarship are informed by interdisciplinary research in social welfare, plant biology, philosophy, and theology, as well as previous work in the healing arts and at non-profit environmental organizations.
Gentlewomen
Once upon a time, the thinkers and writers (all men) figured nature, providence, and fortune as human and, more specifically, as women. Megan Kaminski’s new work imagines the three still living and working among us today—sisters to one another other, and perhaps to herself. In her formally evocative, gorgeously baroque poems, these gentlewomen are bountiful, powerful, and tender, both exceeding man’s hubris and moored in the wreck it has wrought. —Evie Shockley
Prairie Divination
Prairie Divination turns to the plants, animals, and geological features of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem as a source for knowledge and inspiration as to how to live in the world (and to re-align thinking towards kinship and sustainability). How might thinking with plants and animals guide us in navigating an uncertain present--and help to imagine futures?
Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene Podcast
In this episode of the Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene Podcast, Kate Brelje interviews poet and interdisciplinary scholar Professor Megan Kaminski about her work with plants—including a discussion of cup plants, queer ecologies, and interdisciplinary plant studies.
Virtual AWP in Conversation
Divine Writing—Connections between Writing Practice, Craft, and Divination explores the link between writing and divinatory practices. Participants Teresa Carmody, Megan Kaminski, Hillary Leftwich, Kristen Nelson, Hoa Nguyen, and Selah Saterstrom join to discuss their experiences at the intersection of spirituality and writing craft, with moderation from Michele Battiste.
