Maybe we are biased, but we have some of the best alumni. They are a diverse group of amazing humans doing interesting and important work in the world. We miss them after they are gone, and love nothing more than to brag about them, to share with you all the good stuff they are doing. When thinking about poetry, there are two alumna in particular that come immediately to mind: Chloe’ Leisure (MFA Creative Writing: Poetry, Spring 2006), and Felicia Zamora (MFA Creative Writing: Poetry, 2012).
Chloe’ Leisure was born and raised in Marquette, Michigan. She teaches community and elementary enrichment creative writing classes in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is the author of the chapbook, The End of the World Again (2015), and her poetry has appeared in publications including Fort Collins Courier, Matter, PANK, Paterson Literary Review, A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Permafrost. She received her MFA from CSU and was the 2014 Fort Collins Poet Laureate.
A few more interesting things about and from Chloe’:
- An interview: Introducing the 2014 Fort Collins Poet Laureate, Chloé Leisure
- A poem: Out and About with All Your Little Friends
- Poetry prompts: Book Thieving, Persona Poems, and Junk Mail Poetry
Felicia Zamora’s bio on her website says, “Felicia Zamora’s books include Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (University of Notre Dame Press 2017), & in Open, Marvel (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press), and Instrument of Gaps (Slope Editions). She won the 2015 Tomaž Šalamun Prize from Verse, and authored the chapbooks Imbibe {et alia} here (2016) and Moby-Dick Made Me Do It (2010). Of Form & Gather was listed as one of the “9 Outstanding Latino Books Recently Published by Independent and University Presses” by NBC News… She is an associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Colorado State University. She lives in Colorado with her partner, Chris, and their three dogs, Howser, Lorca, and Sherlock.”
A recent update from Felicia shared that her manuscript Galaxy Inside Your Inadequately Small Heart was selected as a finalist in the 2017 Alice James Award and the 2017 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry. Her poem “In all the pretty roam” was featured on Zòcalo Public Square on Friday, March 17 and her poem “Virgule” was selected by The Georgia Review for publication. Zamora read her poetry for the AKO Collective’s Day Without A Woman recognition event on March 8.
A few more interesting things about and from Felicia:
- An alumni profile interview we did in October 2015
- An article from the Spring 2016 edition of the CLA online magazine, Alumna Felicia Zamora Wins 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize
- Her website, which includes links to her poetry and other interviews