Elise Paschen, a poet of Osage

Osage Nation

The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...

 descent, is the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion (arts program)

Poetry in Motion is an arts program collaborative which displays poems by prominent authors in advertising space on the buses and subways. The program was launched by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Poetry Society of America, based on the success of the Streetfare Journal...

, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. The daughter of renowned prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief was the first native-American prima ballerina. From 1942 to 1947 she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but she is best known for her time with the New York City Ballet from 1947 to 1965.-Early life:...

, and Chicago builder Henry D. Paschen, she was born and raised in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, where she attended the Francis W. Parker School

Francis W. Parker School (Chicago)

Francis W. Parker School is an independent day school serving students from junior kindergarten through grade twelve of high school. Located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, the school is based on the progressive educational philosophies of John Dewey and Colonel Francis Wayland Parker,...

. A graduate of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, she holds M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in 20th Century British and American Literature from Oxford University.

Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Ploughshares and Shenandoah.

Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America from 1988 until 2001, she recently was appointed the Poet Laureate of Three Oaks, Michigan. She was the featured Illinois poet at the National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress in September 2006. Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Stuart Brainerd, and their two children.

Works

• Houses: Coasts (Sycamore Press, Oxford, 1985)
• Infidelities (Story Line Press, 1996)
• Bestiary (Red Hen Press, 2009)

Anthologies featuring her poems

• Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America (1997)
• Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazal
  Ghazal
  The ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th century...
  
  s in English (2000)
• The POETRY Anthology, 1912—2002 (2002)
• A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women (2007)

Editor or co-editor

• Poetry in Motion (1996)
• Poetry Speaks (2001)
• Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast (2002)
• Poetry Speaks to Children (2005)
• Poetry Speaks Expanded
  Poetry Speaks Expanded
  Poetry Speaks Expanded is a 2007 poetry anthology edited by Elise Paschen, Rebekah Presson Mosby and Series Editor Dominique Raccah. It is a fusion of the poets' words with the poets' voices, including text and audio CD recordings of nearly fifty of the greatest poets who ever lived...
  
  (2007)
• Poetry Speaks Who I Am (2010)

External links

• Elise Paschen author homepage
• Elise Paschen on NativeWiki.