Poet to present works on love, loss

On Thursday, April 14, Christine Stewart-Nuñez is bringing her latest poetry on love and loss to life on the Augustana campus.

A recipient of a 2003 Academy of American Poets Award and professor at South Dakota State University, Stewart-Nuñez published her latest book of poetry, Keeping Them Alive, in December 2010.

Weaving love and loss into an exploration of family, Stewart-Nuñez considers the tensions inherent in becoming a new mother, while also remembering the life and death of her sister.

"This reading is particularly challenging because the poems in this book were inspired by intense emotional experiences," Stewart-Nuñez said.

Stewart-Nuñez wrote most of the poems for Keeping Them Alive in the last five years, but some of the poems were written when she was as young as 11 or 12 years old.

"The hardest part of writing poetry is revising 10, 50, 100 times until the poem is the very best it can be – having the patience, will, and creativity to do that," Stewart-Nuñez said.

Stewart-Nuñez takes an active approach to the writing process, constantly driving her creative process forward.

"I usually don't wait for inspiration," Stewart-Nuñez said. "I try to look at the world through an artist's eyes to see the tensions, beauty and possibility in daily life."

Stewart-Nuñez was invited to address the college by English professor and Writer-in-Residence Patrick Hicks, who met her several years ago at the South Dakota Festival of Books.

"Since we were both relatively new to our jobs as professors of creative writing, we realized we had a lot in common beyond our passion for writing," Hicks said. "We've been friends ever since."

Hicks appreciates the many aspects of Stewart-Nuñez's work, including her generous ability to capture a foreign country, as in the case with her writings on Turkey, but also her powerful and lingering words about motherhood.

"She is a poet that sticks with you," Hicks said. "It's hard to forget her words or the images she creates."

Hicks feels it's one thing to read a poem, but it's quite another matter to hear a poet read their own work aloud.

"I always find it very powerful to bring the source of a poem to an audience," Hicks said. "I like to bring writers to campus because – at least when I was growing up – writers seemed like mythological creatures to me. It's as if they didn't really exist. To meet a writer and ask questions about their work still fills me with wonder."

Her professional work allows Stewart-Nuñez to teach creative writing classes from the point of view of a writer.

"I ‘practice what I preach,' giving my students exercises and prompts that I use myself," Stewart-Nuñez said. "I get a lot of joy and energy from teaching, and I believe it makes me a better teacher. Certainly, I am a much better teacher because I write."