Poet/artist
I am: a poet and reader, an educator, a multidisciplinary artist, a functional movement/body/strength lover, a gardener, a big thinker & more.
I have two poetry books published by small presses, and current pubs in Shenandoah Literary, Southern Humanities Review, Khôra, and the anthologies Queer Nature, and Reading Queer. Currently an Assistant Professor, I teach first-year multimodal composition and undergrad poetry workshops at VCU, and at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, where I also take classes: photography, clay, glass, fiber, letterpress – anything, really.
Born in Paris, Virginia, I’ve lived and taught across Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado, returning to this green humidity to research and rediscover (through archives and many media) queer home and place narratives like mine, in Virginia’s eastern edges of Appalachia. I was a finalist for the Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia poets, and won 2nd place in Split This Rock’s 2013 poetry contest, judged by Mark Doty. I’ve been a poetry editor for Barely South Review and The Quotable, served on Sinister Wisdom’s board while working as a grants administrator for the Barbara Deming Foundation, and hustled in restaurants for years, part-time teaching, training in yoga and basic strength, and cobbling together a life in service of art and the body – creativity is my home base.
NEWS & EVENTS
Nov 2023-April 2024: I’ve received a Studio Access Residency at The Visual Arts Center of Virginia. The residency grants access to emerging and established artists as they develop new ideas in artistic exploration, giving free access to 17 communal studios. I’ve been in the darkroom printing black & white photos, assembling them into collaged pieces infused with text/print from letterpress and screens + materials from learning flame/glass, clay, textiles and more. This movement into inter/trans-disciplinary artist is a study in process, the creative (often repressed) self alongside my love of poems (made things from sound), how my hands and body create, how life feels more full when I’m attentive to materials in my hands and multiple processes, layered: a little about my work.
Tara Shea Burke 