Jennifer Browne

Queen’s University Belfast (Creative Writing) Scholar Award, Queen's University Belfast - Creative Writing

I am an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where I teach courses in poetry writing and environmental studies, and also co-direct the Women and Gender Studies Minor. Having served first as the 2016 Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio, and consequently as the 2017-18 Poet Laureate of the State of Texas, I’m excited for the opportunities this Fulbright will provide to build both artistic and civic connections through the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. My own poems have always been place-based, exploring how landscape remains inseparable from history, linguistics, and memory. My recent work focuses on places in transition and my experience living near and writing about the US Mexico border has in part informed my interest in living, writing and teaching in Belfast in the time of Brexit. I’m particularly interested in the social functions of poetry, and how Northern Ireland’s industrial heritage, political violence and partitioned status challenge picturesque imaginings of nature poetry, as well as idealized feminizations of landscape. Speaking of landscape, San Antonio averages 200 days of sunshine a year, so my Belfast preparations also include investing in a decent raincoat.