Some Problems in Growing

My artistic lineage is rooted in quirky, provocative, irreverent and experimental art. John Waters, John Cage, Andy Goldsworthy, Cy Twombly and Agnes Martin are a few creators amongst whom I have found solace. I am also inspired by poets and thinkers like Anne Carson, Mary Ruefle, Jen Bervin, and Wisława Szymborska. My poetic lineage and personal history are inextricably tied to women, performative femininity, madness and the aftermath of trauma. Using obsession as a point of entry for investigation and dissection, my poems are also [hopefully] marked by their inquiry rather than their resolve. I am obsessed with Lizzie Siddall, women’s voices, bodies, orchids, decay, boys who don’t love me, the variation of Emily Dickinson’s dashes, eyeliner, Joan of Arc, etc. My poetry is inseparable from myself in its function as a space of vulnerability, honesty and action. My work also embodies a preoccupation with syntax—dissecting and reshaping how words interact with each other, with the page, with three-dimensional space, with time, with an audience and within a traditional paradigm.

As a poet, writer, educator and owner of a small content writing business, every aspect of Melanie’s work—both creative and professional—is steeped in a reverence for communication. She holds an MFA in poetry from Texas State University and was the 2019-2020 Poet in Resident at the Clark House in Smithville, Texas. She was the recipient of a Damsite Residency in New Mexico in 2015 and has been published by Rust + Moth, Barren Magazine, Burning House Press, The Boiler, Black Bough Poetry, and University of Hell Press (print). She was also a commissioned, featured artist for Luminaria: San Antonio Arts Festival in 2017.