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New Mexico State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of English

Faculty

Carmen Giménez Smith
Carmen Smith

 

Carmen Giménez Smith
Assistant Professor

Email:
carmen@noemipress.org

Office Address:
New Mexico State University
Department of English
P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003


Phone:
(575) 646-4338

Fax:
(575) 646-7725


Biographical Statement

  • M.F.A. Creative Writing, University of Iowa
  • B.A. English, San Jose State University

I grew up in California and studied at San Jose State University with Alan Soldofsky, Virginia de Araujo and Samuel Maio. I went on to study creative writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop where I was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. I am an associate editor for Puerto del Sol and a contributing editor for Tusculum Review. I am publisher for Noemi Press (www.noemipress.org) and live in Las Cruces with my husband Evan Lavender-Smith and our two children.


Research and Creative Interests
I am interested in poetry since modernism and particularly the poetries of avant-garde movements. I teach a book arts class in which we explore the relationship between form and content in artist's books and collaborative books. I like to promote small publishing culture. I am also very interested in fairy tales and hybridized forms of writing including the lyric essay.

Courses Recently Taught

  • ENGL 220: Introduction to Creative Writing
  • ENGL 306: Poetry Writing
  • ENGL 363: Children’s Literature
  • ENGL 414: Advanced Creative Writing, Poetry
  • ENGL 535: Form and Technique of Poetry: Poetics
  • ENGL 575: Graduate Workshop
  • ENGL 580: Intersections in Text and Art

Teaching Statement
The creative writing MFA in poetry is an apprenticeship to the long and varied history of poetry that precedes each poet, but it is also the occasion for the poet to consider what important risks he or she is to take in his or her work and how is he or she going to change the terms of their art for the good of the art in general. The workshop is one of many occasions in this program to begin to interrogate what one does in their work, how and why.


Selected and Recent Publications

Chapbooks
Casanova Variations published by Dos Press (forthcoming 2008) (http://www.dospress.blogspot.com/)

Anthologies
poems in Floricanto Si! U.S. Latina Poets (Penguin 1998)

short story in New Voices: Young Latino Writers (Bantam Dell 1997)

short story in An Intricate Weave (Iris Editions 1997)

poems in Contextos: Poemas (Moving Parts Press 1994)

Magazines (poetry)
Individual poems have appeared in:

26

100 Words

American Letters and Commentary

Bilingual Review

Boston Review

Brooklyn Rail

canwehaveourballback

Chicago Review

Diode

Fairy Tale Review

Fourteen Hills Review

Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies

jubilat

Kalliope

Near South

nocturnes

Poet Lore

Poetry Magazine

POOL: A Journal of Poetry

Provincetown Arts

Shampoo Poetry

Tusculum Review

Xantippe

and are forthcoming in Ocho, Mandorla and Brooklyn Rail