Carolyn Elkins

Major Works

• Angel Pays a Visit (2007)
• Daedalus Rising (Emrys Press, 2002)
• Coriolis Forces (winner of Palanfquin Press Chapbook Contest in 2000)

Poetry

• “After Taking My Son to the Airport,” “Beyond Deciphering,” “Between Sodom and Gomorrah,” and “Salome,” Birmingham Poetry Review, 2002
• “Peripheral Vision” and “Plane Geometry,” Gulfstreaming, 2002
• “Fireflies” and “Daedalus Rising,” Magnolia Heart-Songs: Seven Decades of Southern  Poetry, 2002
• “Lee, After the War,” American Studies in Scandinavia (Odense, Denmark), 2001
•  “High Lonesome” and “Middle Texas,” Red Rock Review, 2001
• “New Moon” and “A Man Walks into a Bar,” Tar River Poetry, 2000
• “Golden Road,” Tar River Poetry 20^th Anniversary Issue: “Best of TRP,” 1998
• “Autumn Woman,” Sunstone, 1998
• “Blood,” Poems & Plays, 1998
• “Fractals,” Passager, 1998
• “For My Son,” Tar River Poetry, 1997
• “Holding Back Darkness,” CEAMAGazine (College English Assoc.), 1997
• “Golden Road,” Tar River Poetry, 1996
• “Dark Window,” Astarte, 1996
• “Ode on a Painted Gourd,” MCTE Journal, 1996
• “Grandpa’s House,” North Branch, 1996
• “Funeral” and “Baptism by Fire,” POMPA, 1996
• “Violets,” Asheville Poetry Review, 1995
• “The Drowning Beach,” New Delta Review, 1995
• “For My Son,” North Branch, 1995
• “Sunk into the Delta,” Distillery, 1994
• “Listening to Terry,” MCTE Journal, 1994
• “My Mother’s Smile,” Psychopoetica (Hull, England), 1994
• “Fractals,” Earth News, 1994
• “Balance,” North Branch, 1994
• “Crossing” and “Dragonflies,” Aura Literary/Arts Review, 1993
• “Listening to a Poet Reading,” Reflections, 1993
• “Violets,” “Drowning Beach,” and “Dark Window,” POMPA, 1992
• “Dragonfly,” MCTE Journal, 1992

Biography

Poet, artist, and author Carolyn Elkins attended Wells College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1973. She obtained a master’s degree in English at the University of Tennessee in 1981. She taught as a Teaching Associate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

She became professor at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, in 1989 and remained for several years. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award at Delta State in 2005. Elkins taught literature and poetry writing. In 1999, she received a Mississippi Humanities Council teaching award.

She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize in poetry. In 2001, she won the Grand Prize in Poetry in the Red Rock Review competition for her poem “High Lonesome” and an honorable mention for “Middle Texas.” She was nominated for the Poetry Book Award by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters in 2001 for Coriolis Forces.

She is a former member of the Mississippi Writers Association, the Mississippi Poetry Society, the South Carolina Writers Network, the North Carolina Writers Network, and other organizations.

She is Associate Editor of Tar River Poetry and fiction editor of POMPA. She is a founding editor of Ruby Shoes Press.

She currently lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina, with her husband Bill Spencer who is also an author. She has a twin sister.

Elkins produces mixed media jewelry which includes the wings of butterflies, dragonflies, and cicadas; antique watch parts; keys and pen nibs; river stones; and coins. Her work is available online at https://carolynelkins.com/.

Related Websites

• Read the poem Fractals by Carolyn Elkins here

Bibliography

• Carolyn Elkins  biography on Wikipedia