Former Kansas Poet Laureate Low presents the first critical study of contemporary Mid-Plains literature, showing how the region's writers inherit a frontier legacy from indigenous and American settler communities.
Denise Low has published 20 books of poetry and essays. Among her publications are Words of a Prairie Alchemist (Ice Cube Press, 2006), Ghost Stories of the New West (Woodley Memorial Press, 2010), and Langston Hughes in Lawrence (Mammoth Press, 2004). Most recently, she is the author of NATURAL THEOLOGIES: ESSAYS ABOUT LITERATURE OF THE NEW MIDDLE WEST (The Backwaters Press, 2011). She has served on the board of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, where she was also president and conference chair. She has taught at Haskell Indian Nations University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Richmond. In addition to being the Kansas Poet Laureate from 2007-2009, she is the recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Newberry Library, Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Kansas Arts Council, Kansas Center for the Book, and the Roberts Foundation National Writing Competition. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University and a PhD from the University of Kansas.
