Martha Serpas
Professor
- Phone: 713 743 2942
- Email: mserpas@uh.edu
- Office: Roy Cullen Building
- CV
Martha Serpas is the author of three collections of poetry, Côte Blanche (New Issues, 2002); The Dirty Side of the Storm (W.W. Norton, 2007); and The Diener (LSU Press, February 2015). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, as well as in a number of anthologizes, including the Library of America’s American Religious Poems. She has taught at Yale Divinity School and the University of Tampa, where she served as poetry editor of Tampa Review. A native of south Louisiana, she remains involved in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. Since 2006 she has worked as a trauma hospital chaplain.
Education
- BA - Louisiana State University, English
- MA - New York University, English concentration in Creative Writing
- MDIV - Yale Divinity School
- PhD - University of Houston, Literature and Creative Writing
Selected Publications
Books
- The Dirty Side of the Storm. W. W. Norton. 2007.
- Côte Blanche. Fwd. Harold Bloom. New Issues Poetry and Prose. Western Michigan UP. 2002.
Periodicals and Anthologies
- “As If There Were Only One.” The Best of Image. Eerdsman. (forthcoming)
- “Aunt Kate Considers the Family Tomb” and “Insufficient, Ineligible Loss.” Christianity and Literature. (forthcoming)
- “Paradis,” “Epithalamia,” and “Now Hill.” Relief: A Journal of Christian Expression. 2.3 (Fall 2008).
- “The Pomegranate.” Verse Daily. www.versedaily.com. June 22, 2008.
- “Conveyance” and “The Dirty Side of the Storm.” Poetry Daily. www.poetrydaily.org. May 26, 2008.
- “The Diener.” The New Yorker. April 7, 2008.
- “There.” Journal of The Liturgical Conference. Liturgy: New and Borrowed Rites. 23.1 (2008).
- “A Chaplet for Lana.” Prism. Fall 2007.
- “Old River.” (nonfiction) Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion. (Number 55). Fall 2007.
- “Lying in the Middle of the Field.” The Nation. April 2007.
- “Formica” and “Millennial Birthday.” 2RiverView 10.2 (Winter 2006).
- “As If There Were Only One,” “Witness Tree,” “Poem Found,” and “Psalm at High Tide.”
- Harold Bloom and Jesse Zuba (eds.) American Religious Poems. NY: Library of America. (October 2006).
- “The Boat Shed,” “A Future With Hope,” and “No-Name Storm.” The Connecticut Review. Winter 2006.
- “Reburial at Sea,” “The Dirty Side of the Storm,” and “Creation.” Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion. 32.4 (Winter 2005).
- “Poem Found.” The Christian Century. November 1, 2005.
- “Psalm at High Tide,” “The Water,” and “A Corollary.” The New Yorker. September 12, 2005.
- “The Discipline of Non-Fulfillment,” “Bayou Lafourche,” “Sunrise,” and “Hard Rain.” Passages North. 26.1 (Winter/Spring 2005).
“Bully Camp Road” and “Ghost Trees.” Metre 17. (Spring 2005).