James Cocola

James Cocola (Grad ’09) has released Places in the Making: A Cultural Geography of American Poetry (University of Iowa Press). The book maps a range of 20th- and 21st-century American poets who have used language to evoke the world at various scales. The poetics under consideration, distinct from related traditions such as landscape, nature and pastoral poetry, centers on particular engagements with actual places.

James Cocola (Grad ’09) has been awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor in the department of humanities and arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. His research explores ideas of place in American poetry and poetics, the literary and cultural production of Americans and others of Mediterranean descent, and experiential and experimental forms of writing. Mr. Cocola has received a number of honors for his work, including a scholarship for the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin, and a resident scholarship at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.