Francesca Normile

Undergraduate Discipline

Writing

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MFA, The Michener Center for Writers at University of Texas-Austin. Author of Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party (2020 APR/Honickman First Book Prize). Normile's poems have appeared in The Nation, The American Poetry Review, jubilat, Poets.org, Narrative, and elsewhere. Recipient of the 2022-23 Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at University of Wisconsin–Madison. SLC, 2024–

Undergraduate Courses 2024-2025

Writing

Ritually, I’m Right Here

Open, Seminar—Fall

WRIT 3530

In this poetry class, we will engage actively with the PRESENT MOMENT in our writing and reading by shifting ourselves out of the familiar and into a position where time can better reveal to us its nonlinear nature. Going from rote to wrote, as they say, haha. We will read, write, and share poems with one another, as well as engage with a variety of funky practices and materials—such as creating and exchanging our own rituals and prompts; practicing some of CAConrad’s (soma)tic rituals; and using pencils, sticks, rocks, dirt, water, light, darkness, music, books, juice, and so on—to better understand what poems can do when we get out of their way. You will meet with me in an individual conference every other week and, by the end of the semester, assemble a chapbook of poems/experiences.

Faculty