English Program
Dr. Ash Bowen
Assistant Professor of English
Office: 308 East Hartnett Hall
Email: ashley.bowen@minotstateu.edu
Phone: 858-3269
Ph.D., English/Creative Writing (Poetry), University of North Texas, 2012
M.F.A., Creative Writing (Poetry), University of Arkansas, 2008
Committee: Davis McCombs (director), Geoffrey Brock, Jon DuVal.
M.A., English/Creative Writing (Fiction), University of Louisiana at Monroe, 1997
B.A., English, University of Arkansas at Monticello, 1995
Publications:
BOOKS
The Even Years of Marriage, Dream Horse Press (Winner, 2012 Orphic Book Prize for Poetry)
Two Weeks: A Digital Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. Ash Bowen and Johnathon Williams, eds. Linebreak Press, 2011
SELECTED POETRY PUBLICATIONS
New England Review, Best New Poets, Best of the Net, Black Warrior Review, Kenyon Review Online, Quarterly West, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and Blackbird.
SELECTED WRITING AWARDS & HONORS
Best of the Net Anthology, 2013 (Selected by A.E. Stallings)
Pushcart Prize Nomination by a Member of the Board of Contributing Editors, 2012
Orphic Book Prize Winner, 2012
Able Muse Book Prize, Semifinalist, 2012
Orange Monkey Chapbook Prize, Finalist, 2011
Ruth Lily Poetry Fellowship Nominee, 2008
Rhysling Poetry Award, Finalist, 2005
First place, fiction category, Louisiana Association for Collegiate Composition State-wide Writing Contest, 1997
Second place, fiction category, Louisiana Association for Collegiate Composition State-wide Writing Contest, 1996
More About Me:
I hold an MFA from the University of Arkansas and a PhD in English/creative writing from the University of North Texas, where my dissertation received the 2012 Toulouse Dissertation Award for “unusually significant contribution to the field” of English.
My dissertation contained both creative and critical sections, with the critical section examining the contemporary American elegy. I argued the existence of a heretofore undocumented type of elegy in contemporary American poetry: the elegy of unacknowledged loss. Unlike the traditional elegy, which seeks to find closure for the speaker, elegies of unacknowledged loss work against the tendency for closure. I turned the research into an essay that is forthcoming in Modern American Poetry.
My book of poems, The Even Years of Marriage, explores the intersection of science and popular culture (for example, “Buck Rogers, Your Ray Gun Would’ve Been Nothing Compared to My Love” and “Using the Earth as Blunt-Force Object”); the book examines romantic love and grief (such as, “All My Grudges I’ve Given Your Name” and “To the Double Helix”).Overall, the response to my poetry has been enthusiastic. The book won the very competitive 2012 Orphic Book Prize (Dream Horse Press). David Bottoms (Georgia’s Poet Laureate) called the book “a dagger through the heart.” In addition, my poems have been selected for inclusion in Best New Poets 2011 and Best of the Net 2013.My work was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Other poems have appeared in the New England Review, Kenyon Review Online, Quarterly West, and many others. My fiction has appeared in Louisiana English Journal and Between the Lines.
My interest in contemporary forms of publishing led me to co-found and serve as co-managing editor of the online poetry magazine, Linebreak (www.linebreak.org). Our magazine was one of the first to integrate multiple media delivery systems that included audio recordings (that became available for download on iTunes) and email subscriptions from 1200 unique accounts. Linbreak Press produced Two Weeks, the first e-book-only anthology of contemporary American poetry to appear in the United States, and I am currently working on an anthology of contemporary “grudge” poetry.