Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Kathryn CowlesAssociate Professor of English and Creative WritingChair, English and Creative Writing Department

Joined faculty in 2011

M.A., British and American Literature, University of Utah
Ph.D., Creative Writing and English, University of Utah

Contact Information

Scholarly Interest

• Creative Writing - all genres
• Poetry
• Hybrid Forms
• Contemporary American Poetry
• Modernist Poetry
• Early 20th Century European Avant-Garde
• Poetic Theory
• Harlem Renaissance Poetry
• Gender Theory

Teaching Experience

• Hobart and William Smith Colleges - Associate Professor (2011 to present)
• Ohio Northern University - Assistant Professor (2009-2011)
• University of Utah - Teaching Fellow (2001-2009)

Research

I recently finished my second book of poems, Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World, which has been accepted for a spring 2019 publication by Milkweed Editions. I’m working on two (or maybe more) additional book-length projects right now. The most complete is called Notes on the Imminent Art Show and involves a bunch of ekphrastic poems, or poems written to/about/after art pieces. The art pieces I claim to have made myself, and each is increasingly difficult, strange, unlikely, or dangerous. Some of these poems have been picked up for publication and are included in links below (you can tell by the odd titles that resemble museum placards). I imagine the final book to be something like a museum in the mind. I’m also writing a long series of poems about the lake. To do this, I go out to the lake pretty much every day around 10:30 and sit there and look around till a poem appears. I write it down, and then I leave. I started the poems in May 2017 and imagine I’ll finish them May of 2018. I’m also really interested in collaborative work and hybrid work—I’ve been collaborating lately with Kirin Makker from Art and Architecture on an artist book and other works about the lake. I'm hoping to do some video collaboration with my Hybrid Forms students fall of 2017.

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Creative Writing 
• Advanced Poetry Writing 
• Hybrid Forms Workshop
• Modernist American Poetry
• Contemporary American Poetry
• Introduction to Women's Studies
• FSem: Art on the Edge

Publications

Books

Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World - Milkweed Editions (forthcoming Spring 2019)

Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name (book) - Bear Star Press - Brunsman Poetry Prize winner (2008)


Poems and Poem-photograph Hybrids (recent and selected)
“Hidden Noise. Kathryn Cowles. Wood, cloth, paper, twine, thread, furniture, building materials, body. 2014.” - Boston Review (forthcoming)
"Experiment. Kathryn Cowles. Metal, treadmill, buttons, psychiatrists, the artist. 2014,” and “Heart 2. Kathryn Cowles. Mixed media. 2014,” - New Ohio Review (2017)
“Heart 1. Kathryn Cowles. Thread, yard, fabric, ribbon. 2013.” “Needle 1. Kathryn Cowles. Steel. 2010.” - New American Writing (2017)
“Moon. Kathryn Cowles. Oil on canvas. 2012.” “Clouds. Kathryn Cowles. Acrylic on canvas. 2013.” "Transcript," "Map," "Toast" - Colorado Review (2017, 2009)
“Pregnant Belly” - The Georgia Review (2015)
“Map: Island,” “Map: Island City,” “Three poems called Transcript,” “Script,” “Transcript: The day before the day before we have to leave,” “Transcript” (“stood in the shower today”), “Transcript, Map: Ohio,” “Imaginary Transcript,” “Map” (“Look up: it is flat”), “Poem for the putting in of the new carpet,” “Glossary [Recipe],” “Fieldguide marginalia: Montana,” “Photograph,” “Transcript: Montana,” “Glossary [Metaphor],” “Boat tour,” and “Transcript” (“five birds on the wooden beam”) - Verse (2015)
“Glossary [Hymn],” “Glossary [Fieldguide]” - Best American Experimental Writing (anthology - Omnidawn - 2014)
“Nest 1. Kathryn Cowles. Wood, Egg Tempura. 2013” - Diagram, Issue 14.1, Spring 2014.
“Stopper,” “Glossary [Map],” “Glossary [Hymn]”  - Witness, Volume 27, Issue 1, Spring 2014.
“Map [Look up: It is flat],” “Glossary [Transcript],” “Glossary [Postcard]” - The Offending Adam (2013)
“Covers” - Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day (2012)
“Postcard” (“[O Brenda]”), “Hymn” (“[All is well, I sang”]) - Clade Song (2012)
"Transcript [table salt.]," “Lesson,” “Transcript” (“[Akis throws water balloons at the kittens]”) - Versal (2009, 2012)
“Interview” (“[Why do you want to work in Ohio]”) - Western Humanities Review (2012)
"I am on a plane" - Bombay Gin (2011)

"Origin story," "Map legend," "[can't you see darling]" - Drunken Boat (2011)

“Guidebook,” “Transcript” (“[second bird]: ---------”), “[can’t catch],” and “[wave not wave]” - Word for/Word (2010)
"Recipe," and "Recipe" - Forklift Ohio (2010)
"For example," "Postcard," "Three poems called the basil," "Two poems called transcript," "I am wearing a pinkish shirt" - Flatmancrooked's Slim Volume of Contemporary American Poetry (anthology - 2010)

"Holy blue roof," "Fieldguide," "[Map]," "[Map]," "[silo shade]" - Interim (2009)


Essays and Reviews
"Recuperating the Brilliant Picture: Language as Transubstantiation in Revell's Later Poems" - Interim (2017)
“17 Beginnings of Reviews: Like Oysters in the Sun by Brenda Sieczkowski” - Drunken Boat (2015)
“Magic Gaps, Poetry, Ecstasy, and the Movies” - Her Circle: A Magazine of Women's Creative Arts and Activism (invited blog - 2011)
“Gentle Reader-Realist: Recuperative Violence in Howe’s The Midnight” - Octopus Magazine (2007)
Various reviews of books of poems in Barrow Street and Colorado Review.

 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Co-editor of Poetry and Hybrid Forms for Seneca Review