Two poems by Leah Naomi Green, writer-in-residence and visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, have received national recognition. Green’s poem “Human Grammar” won the Poetry of the Sacred Writing Contest’s Thomas Merton Prize from the Center for Interfaith Relations, and her poem “Through the Cornfields, My Fear Was Not Sad” was shortlisted for the annual poetry prize from the Alpine Fellowship.
A visiting member of the Washington and Lee faculty since 2009, Green teaches courses at the intersection of environmental studies and creative writing, and she conducts research on eco-poetry, environmental literature, and creative nonfiction. She is the author of The More Extravagant Feast (Graywolf Press, 2020), which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her next book, To Be Alive While You’re Alive, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.
Green holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies in the humanities from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and a master of fine arts degree in English and poetry writing from the University of California, Irvine.