PHILADELPHIA -– Marcella Durand has been named the 2010-2011 CPCW Fellow in Poetics and Poetic Practice at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania.

Durand’s recent books include “Deep Eco Pré,” a collaboration with Tina Darragh;  “Area” and “Traffic & Weather,” a site-specific book-length poem written during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.  

Durand has collaborated on projects with a variety of artists including a recent collaboration with Karoline Schleh of New Orleans titled “Stare: What Wild New World Is This?”  Her essays and poetry have appeared in The Nation, Ecopoetics, NYFA Current, Conjunctions, The Poker, HOW(2), Critiphoria, The Denver Quarterly and others.  

At Penn, Durand will teach a Spring 2011 undergraduate seminar, “Poetry & Poetics: The Ecology of Poetry.”  The course will delve into the emerging discipline of ecopoetics.   Students will experiment with writing in forms associated with nature poetry such as the pastoral, while inventing new forms based on observations of the “world about.”

Readings will include selections from “Black Nature Poetry and The Ecolanguage Reader,” as well as a range of poetry that will expand and illuminate the potentials of ecopoetics.   Durand will also serve as a mentor for students in the class and participate in workshops and give readings, talks and presentations at the Kelly Writers House at Penn.