Curriculum Vitae – Ken McCullough

St. Andrew’s School, Delaware, graduate, 1961; B.A., University of Delaware, 1966; M.F.A., Writers Workshop, University of Iowa, 1968.

Writer-in-Residence, South Carolina Educational Television, 1975-1979; Union Laborer, Iowa City, Iowa, 1979-82; Program Specialist, Iowa Humanities Board, 1982-83; Undergraduate Academic Adviser, University of Iowa, 1983-96; Assistant Director of Academic Advising and Director of the Path to Academic Success, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2005-2012.

Montana State University, 1970-75 (Composition, Intro to Literature, Modern British and American Poetry, Contemporary American Poetry, Poetry Writing, Fiction Writing, Science Fiction Seminar), University of Iowa’s Saturday and Evening Program, 1984-96 (American Lives, The Experience of the Frontier, The Western, American Indian Literature, The Experience of Vietnam, Non-Fiction Writing, Personal Writing: On Nature) and American Indian Literature as a daytime course; the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, 1989, 1990, 1995; Kirkwood Community College, Iowa, 1986 (Comp II); Poetry-in-the-Schools in Montana, 1971-75, South Carolina, 1976-79 and Iowa, 1985-93; prison workshops in Montana, 1974-75, and South Carolina, 1977-79; Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 1996-97 (Writing Skills, English Composition, Argumentative and Research Writing), Viterbo College, 1997(Literature and Composition), Winona State University 1998-2003, 2013 (College Reading and Writing, Indian Lit, Contemporary Indian Lit., Poetry Writing: About Nature, Intro to Creative Writing); University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, 2003 (College Writing I); Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2006-11 (Introduction to Literature, Writing Skills); Hawk’s Well Writing Center (Winona), 2006–Memoir Writing; four-session poetry workshop, Cotter High School, 2011; ten-session poetry workshop, Red Wing Correctional Facility, 2011.

The Easy Wreckage (collection), The Seamark Press, Iowa City, January 1971, illustrated by Donna Violetti; Migrations (chapbook), Stone-Marrow Press, Ithaca, April 1972; Creosote  (collection), Seamark, 1976, illustrated by Nana Burford; Travelling Light (collection), Thunder’s Mouth Press, N.Y., 1987; Sycamore•Oriole (long narrative sequence), Ahsahta Press, Boise, November 1991; Obsidian Point (two long sequences of poems and an essay, Lone Oak Press, 2003; Walking Backwards (chapbook), Longhouse Editions, 2003, Walking Backwards (collection), Blue Light Press, 2005; Diet for the Smallest Planet (bus ticket format), Longhouse Publishers, 2011, Sicomoro.Oropéndola (Spanish trans. of Sycamore.Oriole, by Rafael Patiño Góez), Sílaba Editores, Medellín, Colombia, November 2011; Broken Gates (collection), Red Dragonfly Press (Northfield, MN), 2012; Lost Lake Folk Opera, Shipwreckt Books Publishing Co, 2015.

Selections from Sacred Vows, nine poems by Cambodian poet U Sam Oeur, an en face chapbook (Khmer and English), Zephyr Limited Edition Chapbook Series (Iowa City), October 1993, 26 pages; Sacred Vows, a bilingual edition of the collected poems of U Sam Oeur, survivor of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, Coffee House Press, May 1998; Ever Hopeful, a selection of poems by U Sam Oeur, Longhouse Publishers, Green River, VT, 2011.

Left Hand, Seismicity Editions, Los Angeles, 2004.

Crossing Three Wildernesses, a memoir, by U Sam Oeur, co-written with McCullough, Coffee House Press, 2005.

Academy of American Poets Award; NEA Fellowship; The Capricorn Book Award; Pablo Neruda Award; grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry; Galway Kinnell Poetry Award; New Millenium Poetry Award; Blue Light Book Award; Individual Artist Grant from the Iowa Arts Council; residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico and the Ucross Foundation (Wyoming); two travel grants from the Jerome Foundation (to Cambodia and Newfoundland); Finalist for Minnesota Book Award in 1998 (poetry–translation), 2005 (fiction), and 2006 (non-fiction), as well as finalist for Kiriyama Prize, 2006 (non-fiction); Nominated for Pushcart Prize, 2011, 2012, 2013; Project grant for “Farming the Ridge,” Southeast Minnesota Arts Commission, 2012; Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2012; 2014 Minnesota Composer-Librettist Studio, Nautilus Music-Theater, St. Paul.

The Defender; Ghost Dance; TriQuarterly; Saltlick; Suction; Doones; Quetzal; Trace; Red Clay Reader; Jeopardy; South Florida Poetry Journal; Wisconsin Review; Gum; The Back Door; Hearse; Bones; Apropos; December; Crazy Horse; The Ark River Review; The North Stone Review; Free Quarter; Kamadhenu; The New Salt Creek Reader; The Exponent; Dogsolider; Charas; Search for Tomorrow; Granite; Sadvipra– The Journal of Spritual and Social Progress; Stone Drum; Bachy; New Letters; Lazarus; Longhouse; Sandlapper; The Seattle Review; Kudzu; South Carolina Review; The Hiram Poetry Review; The Spirit That Moves Us; Corona; Iowa Woman; The Rockford Register; Studia Mystica; Washington Review; North Dakota Quarterly; The Devil’s Millhopper; The Phoenix Nest; Stand Magazine (England); Abraxas; Nurturing News; Stone Country; Crab Creek Review; Slipstream; Nimrod; Kumquat Meringue; Shaman’s Drum; Libido; Confluence; The Saturday Museum; Old Crow; 100 Words; Rain City Review; Briar Cliff Review; Black Buzzard Review; Slant; Poets On: Complaints; Big Sky Journal; ArtWord Quarterly; Firestarter; Steam Ticket: A Third Coast Review; The Iowa Source; Buffalo Bones; Fan: A Baseball Magazine; BlackWater Review; No Exit; A New Song; Dominion Review; North Coast Review; Mosaic; Pleiades; South Dakota Review; Architrave; Abiko Quarterly (Japan); Great River Review, Montana Crossroads Magazine, River King Poetry Supplement, New Millennium Writings; Luna; Bloomsbury Review; Bryant Literary Review; Mochila Review; Elysian Fields Quarterly; Awakenings Review; Ginko Tree Review; Water Stone; Red Dragonfly Press (broadside); Or; Bombay Gin; Minnesota Law and Politics; Green Blade; Winona Catholic Worker; The Gettysburg Review; Taos Journal of Poetry and Art; Caravansary (Chiapas, Mexico – translated into Spanish).

New Voices in the Wind; Dance of the Muses; I Love You All Day/It Is That Simple: Modern Poems on Love and Marriage; Southwest: A Contemporary Anthology; Where We Are: The Montana Poets Anthology; I Sing the Song of Myself: An Anthology of Autobiographical Poems; Brother Songs; Leaving the Bough: 48 Younger American Poets; The Sri Chinmoy Poetry Awards; Enter the Heart of the Fire: A Collection of Mystical Poems;  Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry; New Letters Reader II; Men & Women: Together & Alone; A Poetry Anthology on Works in the Des Moines Art Center; A Longhouse Reader; Crab Creek Review Anniversary Anthology; More Than Animals; Voices on the Landscape; Primarily Prints; Grrrrr: A Collection of Poems about Bears; 2001 Minnesota Poetry Calendar;  33 Minnesota Poets (Nodin Press); Verse Daily (online anthology); The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume I :South Carolina; Minnesota Law and Politics (on-line);The Other Voices International Project (cyber anthology); From Blue Herons to White Cranes; Some Ride! A Fetschrift for Michael Dennis Browne; Promoteo (Medell ín, Colombia); Poetry Daily; Wholly Falsetto with People Dancing (Paul Vangelisti); The Melody Weaves In and Out: Poems from the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, 2008-2012, Winona, MN, 2013; A Ritual to Read Together: Poems In Conversation with William Stafford, ed. Becca J.R. Lachman, Woodley Press, 2013; Nuovo poesia americana: Chicago & the Great Plains, Arnoldo Mondadori Publishing (Milan), ed. Luigi Ballerini, Gianluca Rizzo, Paul Vangelisti, Spring 2014; An Elk River Reader: Livingston Area Writers, Bangtail Press, Bozeman, MT, 2014; River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the 21st Century (Blue Light Press).

Exchanges: A Journal of Translation; 100 Words; Nebraska Humanities; Artful Dodge; Green Fuse; Manoa; Briar Cliff Review; Modern Poetry in Translation; The  Iowa Review; Earth’s Daughters; Press; Journal of the Asian American Renaissance; Asian Pages; xcp: cross-cultural poetics; The Walt Whitman Quarterly; Long Shot;  Bush Fellows News; Whiskey Island Magazine. Anthologies: Voices of Conscience: Poetry From Oppression (England); Chokecherries 1998: A S.O.M.O.S. Anthology; Quill, UNESCO, Seoul, South Kore; Taos Journal of Poetry and Art.

The Iowa Review; Again, Dangerous Visions (anthology); Fantastic Stories; The North Stone Review; First Intensity; The New Review of Literature.

The State (Columbia, S.C.); The News and Courier (Charleston, S.C.); The American Book Review; Dictionary of Literary Biography; The Daily Iowan; North Dakota Quarterly; The Bloomsbury Review; Exchanges; Artful Dodge; The Iowa Review; Walt Whitman Quarterly; Big River Newsletter; The Winona Daily News; The Winona Post; Manoa; Studies in American Indian Literature; In the Shadow of Angkor (book edition of Manoa);Tapestry; Applause; The Poem Behind the Poem (Copper Canyon Press); St. Andrew’s Magazine; Friends of William Stafford: A Newsletter for Poets & Poetry.

Three Worlds, Three Realms, Six Roads, poems by Gary Snyder, Griffin Press; Winter Light, poems by Julie Reid, Circle Press; Wind Over Ashes, selected poems of Len Randolph, Carolina Wren Press; At Least, poems by Cid Corman, Corycian Press; Selections from Sacred Vows, poems by U Sam Oeur, Zephyr Limited Editions. Five drawings in Black Bear Review. From Blue Herons to White Cranes; a bilingual anthology ed. and trans. by Akira Murakami—cover art and three additional drawings.

Anyart Journal; Walking Down Stairs — Interviews with Galway Kinnell, Univ. of Michigan Press; Coda; Callaloo; The Greenfield Review; How in the Morning, Selected Poems of Chuck Miller, Coffee House Press– used as the introduction; Iowa Alumni Review; Walt Whitman Quarterly; Passing the Three Gates: Interviews with Charles Johnson.

Numerous radio and television interviews in Montana, South Carolina and Iowa; Big Ten Magazine; The Easterner (Western Washington State University); interviewed by Dr. Randolph Spencer for session on creativity at conference of American Orthopsychiatric Association; Coda; St. Andrew’s Bulletin; Humanities at Iowa; Windrose; The Iowa Alumni Review; The Telegram (St. John’s, Newfoundland; Winona Daily New;  Art Beat, KQAL 89.5FM; Playhouse Off 90 (3 episodes) KSMQ (PBS affiliate, Austin, MN).

The Ark River Review; Happiness Holding Tank; The North Stone Review; The Washington Post; Best Sellers; New Letters; The State; Poetry Now; Rocky Mountain News Sunday Magazine; Des Moines Register; Library Journal; Kliatt Paperback Book Guide; Small Press; Choice; The Sunday Dispatch and Argus (Quad Cities, IA), Dusty Dog Review; The Redneck Review of Literature; Iowa City Magazine; The Corresponder; The Minneapolis Star Tribune; The St. Paul Pioneer Press; Western American Literature; Taos Journal of Art and Poetry; Rain Taxi; Ink, Sweat & Tears (U.K.)

Spring Green Literary Festival, (WI) 1999 (presentation and workshop); Associated Writing Programs, Vancouver, 2005 (two presentations on translation and a reading); High Plains Book Fest, Billings, MT, presentation on two panels (fiction and poetry) as well as a reading, 2005. 21st Annual Writers Conference, San Diego State University (two workshops); Marshall Festival (Southwest State Univ.), presentation on outdoor writing, 2005; South Carolina Book Fest (Columbia), presentation and panel discussion, 2006; “Writing Memoir,” The Loft (Minneapolis), one presentation, one panel discussion, 2007; “Cry Havoc! : War and Remembrance, 1968-2008, Lannan Literary Symposium and Festival, Georgetown Univ., 2009;  Frozen River Film Festival (Winona), 2010, presentation; 21st International Poetry Festival, Medellín, Colombia, six presentations, 2010.

“Six Rocky Mountain Poets” and the video “A Videoanthology of Montana Poets.”

“Here I Stand: John Beecher, Poet;” “Ron Padgett, Poet and Teacher;” “From a Distance Outside of Time: A Conversation with Leslie Silko;” “I Am All Of Them: Etheridge Knight Raps on Prison and Poetry;” “A Certain Stillness: Joanna Cattonar;” “Wildernesse: Bennie Lee Sinclair Reads and Discusses Her Work;” “Galway Kinnell Reads From His Work;” “There Is Another Life But It Is In This One: William Matthews;” “Miller Williams: A Profile.” A series of spots entitled “Echoes and Soundings: South Carolina Poetry Today” which included over 100 poems read by grade school, high school and adult poets from South Carolina.

“Pitchfork Ben Tillman,” The Palmetto Special, S.C.ETV; “The Denmark Vesey Plot,” The Palmetto Special, S.C.ETV; “Writing an Accident Report,"” Crime to Court, S.C.ETV; “Our Best Hope,” Iowa Board of Regents.

Gift of the Magi," a musical adaptation of the O.Henry story, produced by Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, as their Christmas production, 1991-93; “The Krasang Tree,”  a chamber opera based on the experiences and poetry of Cambodian exile U Sam Oeur, produced at E.C. Mabie Theatre, University of Iowa, 5 May 1996. A new production of this chamber opera was funded by the St. Paul Companies and performed at the Jeune Lune Theatre in Minneapolis in September 1998.

My English translations of U Sam Oeur’s poetry, were the basis for an opera, “Sacred Vows,” by Libby Larsen, performed by the Bemidji Symphony, 2009.

I have read my poetry at over seventy colleges and universities and a range of high schools, grade schools, prisons, and community functions, including the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin. I have served as a judge for a number of poetry and fiction contests and have edited several student anthologies. While living in Iowa, I served the Iowa Arts Council on several panels: Writers Selection Panel, Literature Panel, Creative Artists Planning Project Task Force II, Grassroots Partnership Multidiscipline/ Literature Panel, and the Individual Artists Grants Panel. I was a Generalist on the Advisory Panel to the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, and served as a judge for the Minnesota Voices Project, New Rivers Press; the state finals of Poetry Out Loud!; the Arnold Haake Poetry Contest for the Winona Area Public Schools; the anthology Poetic Strokes, for SELCO, Southeast Minnesota Libraries, and the annual Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, The Great River Shakespeare Festival, Winona, MN. I also edited Beyond the Streets, poems by residents at the Red Wing Correctional Facility.