Artist Statement
My poems often center on the natural world and rely heavily on lived experience, often focusing on our Earth’s flora, fauna, bioregions, and geologic features. I also write about astrophysics and the cosmos. Increasingly, my work has centered around environmental peril, climate grief/optimism/hope, and the Anthropocene, and calling attention to changing weather patterns, forest fires, warming seas, endangered species, and the need to act quickly to reduce carbon outputs. I am urgently drawn to catalogue the species that are managing to survive, along with those that are not, and exposing the ways human beings are leading us toward catastrophe. Influential writers include Craig Santos Perez, Claire Wahmanholm, Barbara Ungar, Elizabeth Bradfield, and Geffrey Davis. I am motivated by an unceasing passion for poetry; it’s my excuse to learn all I can during this brief period I am alive.