Discipline: Literature – poetry

Karen Volkman

Discipline: Literature – poetry
Region: Missoula, MT
MacDowell Fellowships: 1994, 1996, 1997
More: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/karen-volkman
Karen Volkman earned a B.A. at New College, an M.A. at Syracuse University, and completed doctoral work at the University of Houston. Her poetry collections include Crash’s Law (1996), selected for the National Poetry Series by Heather McHugh; Spar (2002), which won the James Laughlin Award and the Iowa Poetry Prize; Nomina (2008); and Whereso (2016). Her poetry has been featured in the anthologies The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology (2000) and American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (2007). Full of lush sonic and syntactic moments, Volkman’s work has been lauded for its beauty as well as its difficulty. Reviewing Nomina for The Pedestal Magazine, Wynn Yarbrough noted that Volkman “straddles an interesting position in her poetics: between surrealism, postmodern ellipticism, associative playfulness and, in this collection, manipulation of formalism.” Volkman’s honors include a Pushcart Prize and a Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry as well as awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, the Bogliasco Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Studios

MacDowell

Karen Volkman worked in the MacDowell studio.

Built in 1912, Pine Studio was renamed MacDowell Studio in 1943 in recognition of support from a group of Edward MacDowell’s music students. It was built as a composers’ studio and the stuccoed walls were intended to be soundproof. Like many of the studios on property, MacDowell was winterized in the 1950s when the program began welcoming…

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