3 Women with Vision and Impact…
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Biographical Statement
Harriet Kramer Linkin received her B.A. in English summa cum laude from Queens College, City University of New York in 1979, her M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan in 1981, and her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan in 1985. She joined the faculty at New Mexico State University in 1986 as an Assistant Professor of Nineteenth-Century British Literature, was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1993, and promoted to Professor in 2000. She served as the English Department Undergraduate Adviser from 1987-96, the Director of Graduate Studies from 1998-02, Director of Undergraduate Studies from 2002-04, and currently serves as Department Head (2004- ).
Teaching Emphases and Research Interests
British Romanticism
Romantic Women Poets
William Blake
Mary Tighe
Gothic Literature
18th-, 19th- and 20th-Century Women Writers
Gender and Language
During the past decade my research has focused on the work of Romantic-era women poets, with particular emphasis on the poetry of Mary Tighe (1772-1810), perhaps still best known for her influence on Keats (although I hope I have been changing that). I have co-edited two essay collections that speak to the value of reading and teaching the writings of once-neglected or forgotten Romantic-era women poets, Approaches to Teaching Women Poets of the British Romantic Period (1997) and Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception (1999) , and the first scholarly edition of Tighe’s poetry and journals, The Collected Poems and Journals of Mary Tighe (2005). In addition to my work on Tighe and other Romantic-era women poets, my publications explore how we are teaching Romanticism, feminist readings of canonical Romantic poets (especially Blake), and feminist approaches to nineteenth- and twentieth-century women writers, gender and language theory, and stylistics.
The kiva meditates on herself
On the roundness of the soul
On the eagle’s circular vision.
Lie on your back, little girl—
Notice the sky! It’s contained
In its own infinite funnel.
I know this kiva. We are old friends—
The mother we never had.
I recognize her! It’s she
Who forces one toward the middle.
In the kiva there is only middle.
Looking out through her bald blue eye
It’s me:
Looking in, looking out.
Brief Biography:
M. Miriam Herrera
Miriam graduated from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago with an MA in Creative Writing where she was awarded an Abraham Lincoln Graduate Fellowship. Her graduate advisors and mentors in the writing of poetry were Ralph J. Mills, editor of The Selected Letters of Theodore Roethke and The Notebooks of David Ignatow; and the late Paul Carroll, founder of the Poetry Center of Chicago, and also founder of Big Table, one of the leading literary magazines of the early 60s, and the Big Table Series of Younger Poets. Mills writes about Herrera’s poetry, “I first discovered—and I use that word intentionally—Miriam Herrera’s work in the midst of the generally rudimentary kinds of poems one receives in a beginning poetry workshop here, a course often taken by students whose knowledge of and ambitions in the realm of poetry are extremely limited. The first poem Miriam turned in for class stunned me with sophistication, directness, and force.” Of Herrera’s work, Paul Carroll writes, “Miriam proved to be one of the most gifted poets to have studied in our Program. Her Master of Arts thesis—a manuscript of original poems—was one of the finest I have had the privilege to supervise.”
Since graduating from the Program for Writers, Miriam has taught at the University of Illinois in Chicago; the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos; South Bay College, in Hawthorne, California; and Russell Sage College in Troy, NY. She has also held positions as Technical Writer/Editor with the Los Alamos Technical Associates, in Los Alamos, NM; and Associate Dean of Faculty at South Bay College, in Hawthorne, California.
Her poetry has been published in New Millenium Writings, ArtLife, Blue Mesa Review, New Zoo Poetry Review, Nimrod: International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Black Maria, ECOS, and other journals. She is an active member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers in Lake Tahoe, CA; a member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Council of La Raza.
Miriam’s enigmatic ancestry compels her writing. As evidenced by her family’s uniquely hybrid practices and traditions, it is likely they descend from crypto-Jews or “conversos” from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. These “conversos” or converts to Catholicism, fled the Spanish Inquisition and came to live in the New World. Descendants of these conversos intermarried with the Native Americans and old Christians that populated the American Southwest.
Miriam explores her crypto-Jewish/Chicana/Native American identity in her poetry. She writes about the paradoxical nature of identity and the many-layered process one must face to reconcile the splintered parts of one’s self. Her personal concept of identity is that it is fluid and changing—that immersion in one culture at a time—and in the very midst of its homeland, is very important to the process. Miriam states, “I feel my topic is worth exploring because I believe cultural fusion is the natural unfoldment of our country’s people. My poetic topics are not just about race and culture, but ultimately about the oneness of all and how this unity crosses all boundaries of race, religion, culture, and gender identity.”
In her writing classes, Miriam encourages students to develop a flourishing writing process unique to each writer, to tap into their obsessions and write from the deepest parts of their most authentic selves, which must be discovered, uncovered, and nurtured. Miriam often stresses the organic nature of the poem, and how a writer must listen closely for guidance in unearthing what the poem wants to do in form, sound, image, and meaning.
At present, Miriam is seeking a publisher for her poetry manuscript entitled Kaddish for Columbus. She is available for presenting poetry readings and creative writing workshops for both adults and adolescents, and also for developing programs and curricula in poetry, creative writing, and Chicano literature.
For more information:http://miriamherrerapoems.googlepages.com/bio
I was looking for a poem, poet, visionary. SO here is a springboard for you to start to explore some amazing poets. You can find more about each. Happy travelling.
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