Joanie V. Mackowski (born 1963, in Illinois) is an American poet. She has published three volumes of poetry, and her works have won multiple awards. She taught creative writing on the faculty of the English department of Cornell University.
In 2004 Mackowski earned a Ph.D. at the University of MissouriColumbia with three emphases: creative writing (poetry); American poetry (19th and 20th centuries); and history of poetics. Her dissertation was titled Conversation Pieces: original poems, with an introductory chapter, "Rethinking Poetic Voice".[3]
At the University of Missouri, Mackowski taught in a new service-learning program, exploring how the arts spark social change:
When Mackowski taught creative writing and service learning she didn't require her students to write poetry about their experiences. Instead she wanted them to think about art in a larger context. "I like to teach them to let their exploration with language lead them to a subject rather than start with the subject and try to poeticize it," she says. "So what we ended up thinking about was the relationship between poetry and society."
In 2010 Mackowski accepted an assistant professor position in the English department at Cornell University. In 2013 she was promoted to an associate professorship with tenure, teaching creative writing.[4] She has since retired from teaching.[6]
David Wagoner, David Lehman, eds. "Boarding: Hemaris thysbe", The Best American Poetry 2009, Simon & Schuster, ISBN978-0-7432-9977-0
David Yezzi, ed. Five Poems. The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, OUP/Swallow Press, 2009, ISBN978-0-8040-1121-1
Reviews
Richard Kenney wrote:
Here's wildness and art, in right proportion: the wildness is surprise without swagger; the art is graceful and mostly disappearing, and otherwise a little extravagant. As in the case of jugglery (another of Joanie Mackowski's mastered arts), loopiness is nothing without the catch. Dropped clubs, flat cakes, flat notes--where but in poetry is a native gift for clumsiness, sedulously conserved, so praised?[17]