I am a writer based in Indianapolis. In my creative work, I couple wordplay with careful observation of flowers, plants, and birds to question assumptions about gender, sexuality, history, and identity. In my scholarship, I study modern and contemporary poetry, ecopoetics, and the environmental humanities.
I co-host the monthly poetry series NIGHTJAR in Indianapolis. As an academic writing coach at Draft by Draft, I work one-on-one with faculty in the humanities and social sciences as they write scholarly books and articles.
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Towards an Ecopoetics of Food
An article on Lorine Niedecker’s 1930s and 40s poems about farming published in Modernism/modernity.
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The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities
An anthology of 45 chapters by scholars in environmental history, anthropology, geography, philosophy, and literature.
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Bending the Curve
A free digital textbook produced as part of a University of California climate education effort, with chapters by climate scientists, social scientists, and scholars in the environmental humanities.
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Playing in the Planetary Field
An essay on Robert Duncan’s ecopoetics published in an edited collection.
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Hubris and Humility in Environmental Thought
An essay on techno-optimism and criticism of it that was published in The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities.
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Browning’s Critique of Organic Form in The Ring and the Book
An article on organic metaphors in Robert Browning’s long poem published in the journal Victorian Poetry.
Michelle Niemann 