UMPI professors
see their finished works go to press
Crowe’s second book of poetry
PRESQUE ISLE — After signing a contract with Finishing Line Press, Dr. Melissa Crowe, assistant professor of English at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, will see her second chapbook of poetry, “Girl, Giant,” released to the public at the end of November.
“These poems will surprise you in a dozen ways,” Christian Barter, author of “In Someone Else’s House,” said. “The poems in ‘Girl, Giant’ probe with a voice that is at once plainspoken and capable of saying nearly anything.”
“I’m thrilled to be able, once again, to get poems into readers’ hands in this format; the chapbook is a little shorter than a full-length collection, making it manageable and, I think, cozy,” Crowe said. “To read a book like ‘Girl, Giant’ is the work of a couple of hours on a chilly fall evening — a rewarding couple of hours, I hope!”
Dr. Crowe, who now focuses exclusively on online course delivery and development, has worked for the past two years from her home in North Carolina. Prior to relocating, she served as assistant professor of English and honors director on the UMPI campus from 2004-08. It was during that time that she began writing her poetry in a non-traditional sort of way — on a blog she started in September 2006. That writing led to the publication of her first book, “Cirque du Creve-Coeur.”
Dr. Crowe was recognized for her writing by the University of Southern Maine’s Words & Images Magazine, which awarded her the inaugural Betsy Sholl Award for Excellence in Poetry in 2011. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines, including the Atlanta Review, the Crab Orchard Review and the Seneca Review. She sits on the editorial board of The Beloit Poetry Journal.
Dr. Crowe was born and raised in Presque Isle and graduated from Presque Isle High School in 1992. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maine, her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. She resides with her husband, Mark, and their daughter, Annabelle, in Asheville, N.C.
Rachel Contreni Flynn, author of “Tongue” and winner of the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award said, “Melissa Crowe has given us the gift of poems that are at once gentle and unflinchingly genuine, that manage to soothe us even as they unsettle. “Girl, Giant” offers in sensual, unexpected language insights into the intimate struggles and triumphs, the back-sliding and maybe-gaining-a-toehold that we know to be true of self and family.”
Herzog published in Polish journal
An education professor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle has had an article and book review published in the inaugural edition of a political science journal based at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.
Dr. Tomasz Herzog, UMPI associate professor of social studies education, was published in Polish Political Science Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal that invites contributions from all the major subfields of political science, including international relations, party politics, comparative politics, political theory, media and journalism studies.
Herzog’s article, “Empire of Illusion? America’s problem with contemporary public discourse,” is among eight articles that appears in the journal. Also featured was a review he wrote about Meira Levinson’s book “No Citizen Left Behind” from Harvard University Press.
His article argues that “a strong sense of exceptionalism that has informed the national character of the United States over the last two centuries has also resulted with some negative, domestic and international, implications.” Herzog suggests that education should play an instrumental role in improving the quality of public discourse and building civil society.
“This article discusses the delicate line between patriotism and nationalism. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of who we are and where we come from, but it’s important to take the outside world into consideration,” Herzog said. “I look at this topic from two perspectives: as a foreigner living in the U.S. and as a social scientist. I hope this contribution to the ongoing discussion about public discourse in democratic societies and national identity provides readers with a thought-provoking look at the subject.”
Polish Political Science Quarterly consists of articles in the field of political science by authors from both the Polish academic community as well as foreign contributors. It is addressed mainly at the scientific centers of political scientists from both domestic and foreign institutions.
For more information about the topic, contact Dr. Herzog at tomasz.herzog@umpi.edu.
