Rebecca Seiferle
Encyclopedia
Life
Seiferle has a BA from the University of the State of New YorkUniversity of the State of New York
The University of the State of New York is the State of New York's governmental umbrella organization responsible for most institutions and people in any way connected with formal educational functions, public and private, in New York State...
with a major in English and History, and a minor in Art History. In 1989, she received her MFA from Warren Wilson College
Warren Wilson College
Warren Wilson College is a private four-year work college in the Swannanoa Valley, North Carolina, United States near Asheville. It is known for its curriculum of work, academics, and service, called "the Triad," which requires every student to work an on-campus job, perform at least one hundred...
.
She taught English and creative writing for a number of years at San Juan College
San Juan College
Founded in 1956 as a branch of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, San Juan College became an independent community college following a county election in 1981.-History:...
and has taught at the Provincetown Fine Arts Center, Key West Literary Seminar, Port Townsend Writers Conference, Gemini Ink, the Stonecoast MFA program She has been poet-in-residence at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
.
She has regularly reviewed for The Harvard Review and Calyx , and her work has appeared in Partisan Review, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Carolina Quarterly. She is editor of The Drunken Boat.
She lives with her family in Tucson, Arizona
Awards
Her first book, The Ripped-Out Seam won the Bogin Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Writers' Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, and the National Writers' Union Prize, and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize.Her second collection, The Music We Dance To (Sheep Meadow 1999) won the 1998 Cecil Hemley Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Her third poetry collection, Bitters, published by Copper Canyon Press, won the Western States Book Award and a Pushcart prize.
Her translation of Vallejo's Trilce was a finalist for the 1992 PenWest Translation Award.
In 2004, she was awarded a literary fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.
Works
- THE CUSTOM; HOW TO SPEAK IN BABYLON; DOCUMENTARIES; THE RIPPED-OUT SEAM, wisewomensweb
- "Law of Inertia", pif Magazine
- "Room of Dust", Santa Fe Poetry Broadside, Issue #11, September, 1999
- The Gift, Copper Canyon Press (2001)
Anthologies
- Best American Poetry 2000, Scribner's, ISBN 9780684842813
- Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon PressCopper Canyon PressCopper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, specializing in the publication of poetry and located in the picturesque town of Port Townsend, Washington. Since 1972, the Press has published poetry exclusively and has established an international reputation for its commitment to...
2002), translations of Alfonso D'Aquino and Ernesto Lumbreras - Saludos: Poemas de Nuevo Mexico, Pennywhistle Press
- New Mexico Poetry Renaissance, edited by Miriam SaganMiriam SaganMiriam Sagan is a U.S. poet, as well as an essayist, memoirist and teacher. She is the author of over a dozen books, and lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a founding member of the collaborative press .A graduate of Harvard with an M.A...
and Sharon Neiderman, Red Crane Press, ISBN 9781878610416 - The Sheep Meadow Anthology.
- Pushcart Prize XXVII, Pushcart Press, 2003, ISBN 9781888889352
Reviews
It's one of those inexplicable moments where you are at a loss for words and the simple task before you remains undone: Write up a book review. But it can't be done when you have the magnitude of the river pressing down on you. It occurs to you, that is exactly how one goes about describing The Ripped Out Seam by Rebecca Seiferle. Her poems run by, at you in torrents, in a rush of words, rapid and seething. One single word tossed into the river ripples across the surface and sinks in deeply. But that's not where it settles. It's dug up again, tossed around, turned over and scrutinized until it takes on the shape and properties of stone, a rock, leaving a wound where a word was dug out. The book itself, a seamless river of stones, reader beware.