Brief Curriculum Vitae

Loretta K. Collins, Ph.D. Full Professor University of Puerto Rico College of Humanities Department of English

Ph.D. Department of English, The University of Iowa, 1999; Dissertation: “Trouble It: Rebel and Revel Urban Soundspaces in the Caribbean Diaspora.” Director: Dr. Mary Lou Emery. M.F.A. English-Creative Writing, Poetry. Writers’ Workshop, The University of Iowa, 1992. Thesis: “All the Bedtime Stories My Women Tell.” Thesis director: Professor Gerald Stern. M.A. English-Creative Writing, Poetry, California State University, Fresno, 1990. President’s Medalist. Dean’s Medal. Thesis: “The Mother’s Song.” Thesis director: Professor Philip Levine. B.A. in English, Summa cum Laude, California State University, Fresno,

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY: 1999 to present, rank Full Professor, Department of English, College of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus; served for four years as departmental director and one year as Associate Academic Dean of the College of Humanities.

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Aging, the End-of-Life Experience, and Death in Literature and Film; Disability Studies and the Humanities; Literature and the Healing Arts: A Cross-cultural Perspective; Topics in Medical Humanities and Health, Literature and Cinema (taught twice as a course on Bioethics and taught once as a course on Cultural Competence and Disparities in the Healthcare Context); Literature and Ecology; Themes in Literature and Film: Reading, Viewing and Writing SciFi and the Fabulist Tale; The Caribbean Experience; Poetry Writing; Fiction Writing; Introduction to Creative Writing; The Immigrant Experience; Reading and Writing the Screenplay; Literature, Orality and Performance; American Literature Survey; Contemporary British Literature Survey; Caribbean Women Writers; African American Literature; Twentieth Century Poetry.

MASTER’S LEVEL COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Caribbean Poetry and Drama; Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture; Caribbean Narrative.

DOCTORAL COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Caribbean Poetry; Black British Literature and Cultural Studies; Caribbean-Canadian Literature and Culture; Caribbean Women Fiction Writers; Caribbean Children’s and Young Adult Literature; Caribbean Film; The Caribbean Visual Imagination in Literature, Film and Art; Latino and Caribbean Sci Fi and Fabulist Tales in Literature and Film. Caribbean Literature and Popular Music (to be taught Spring 2019).

HONORS AND AWARDS: Loretta Collins Klobah and María Grau, editors and translators. 2018 PEN Translates Award (Britain). Announced July 7, 2018. The Sea Needs No Ornament, bilingual anthology of poetry by Caribbean women writers, to be published by Peepal Tree Press, Autumn 2019;

National Endowment for the Humanities faculty development grant, 2012-2013 ($100,0000) for the creation of an undergraduate minor degree in Medical Humanities and Health at the University of Puerto Rico (minor degree approved in August 2017);

Nomination of Dr. Modesto Cepeda for the 2017 National Heritage Fellowship (National Endowment for the Arts). (Successful). Award announced in June 2017. Cepeda was awarded $25,000 in recognition for his lifetime achievement as a Master Artist of Bomba and Plena.

FIPI funds from the University of Puerto Rico (2001);

Recipient of Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship (1999);

Recipient of Fulbright Graduate Fellowship (1997-1998);

Various literary awards, including the Earl Lyon Award for Poetry, from The Academy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize, the Pam Wallace Award for an Aspiring Writer; the 2012 OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature in the category of poetry; shortlisted for the first book award in the Forward Art Foundation Literary Prize series; 2018 British Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation (for second poetry collection); Poetry collection Ricantations selected to be celebrated on National Poetry Day, October 4th, 2018, Britain.

RECENT INVITATIONS (2012 to present): Invited to be on the International Advisory Board of the journal BIM: Arts for the 21st Century. (Caribbean literary and visual arts journal of Barbados); Outside reviewer for the Postcolonial Studies journal Il Tolomeo (Italy). Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Culturali Comparati; Invited writer at the 2018 Miami Book Fair; Juror for the 2018 OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature, in the area of poetry; Invited poet at The New School (NY); Invited writer at the reading for Best American Poetry 2016 at the New School; Calabash Lit Fest in Jamaica; St. Martin Book Fair; Bim Lit Fest in Barbados; NCG Bocas Lit Fest in T&T; El Jardín Borda in Cuernavaca; Poetry is Busy series in Puerto Rico; and many other local reading series in Puerto Rico. Mentor for poetry writing workshop at the North Coast Writing Retreat in the island of Trinidad; Guest editor of newspaper articles about the North Coast Writing retreat, published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. My poems were included in the exhibition “Fifty-Fifty” (a critical response to an art exhibition of Wendy Nanan), curator Dr. Marsha Pearce, at Medulla Art Gallery, Trinidad; Judge for the Puerto Rican state championship of Poetry Out Loud, sponsored by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the NEA.

RECENT CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS (2017-2018): Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Conflictos Bioéticos en el Futuro Humano.” Multidisciplinary Faculty Panel Session: four professors discuss the Future, Bioethics, AI, Synthetic Biology, Neuroscience and the Natural Environment. JGD Anfiteatro 123. UPR, RP. November 28, 2018. 5:30-8:30. National Neuroscience Student Association. Project co-managers David Ojeda, Adriana Padilla and Mónica Hernández. Collins Klobah,. Loretta“Communicating in English in the Context of Grant Proposal Writing.” Post-Doctoral Master is Sciences in Clinical and Translational Research Program. School of Health Professions and School of Medicine. Friday, October 12, 2018. 11:30-1:00 p.m., Room 310, Nursing Building, UPR-Recinto de Ciencias Médicas. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Ricantations: Book Talk and Recital.” November 8, 2018. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Organized by the English Department Professional Improvement Committee. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Bayamón. Salas 1 & 2, Audiovisual, CRA. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “After Irma and Maria: Caribbean Women Writing the Storms.” Panel session of commentary and literary readings by Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Tiphanie Yanique (U.S. Virgin Islands) and Loretta Collins Klobah (Puerto Rico). Miami Book Fair. ReadCaribbean Series. November 17th, 2018. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Miami Dade Community College. Building 8, third floor. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “ReadCaribbean Presents Three Groundbreaking Poets: Rajiv Mohabir, Ruth Bethar and Loretta Collins Klobah.” Miami Book Fair. November 18th, 2018. 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Miami Dade Community College. Building 6, first floor. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Vahni Capildeo. Sunday Launch. A poetry doubleheader as two new books – Ricantations by 2012 OCM Bocas poetry prizewinner Loretta Collins Klobah and Venus as a Bear by TT’s own Forward Prizewinner Vahni Capildeo – make their world debuts, with guest readings by Andre Bagoo, Simone Leid, Brandon O’Brien, and Shivanee Ramlochan. OCM Bocas Lit Fest. Trinidad and Tobago. April 29, 2018. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Elidio la Torre Lagares and Sasha Pimentel. The Sun Sets Pineapple. Poetry reading. August 1, 2018. Libros AC. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Danielle Legros Georges, et al. “Crossing Tonguas.” Writers and translators Adalber Salas Hernández of Venezuela, Loretta Collins Klobah of Puerto Rico, Haitian-American Danielle Legros Georges, and Vahni Capildeo of TT/UK on how and why writing crosses borders of language, and how translation feeds their sense of themselves as citizens of a global literature. OCM Bocas Lit Fest. Trinidad and Tobago. April 29, 2018. Invited Guest Speaker at the ACURIL Conference: “Multidisciplinary Research in the Caribbean” (Academic Libraries and Special Libraries and Information Technologies Special Interest Group). My paper was titled “Humanities and the Healing Arts: Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.” Session title: “Research in Caribbean Ecology, Architecture and Health.” Date: June 7, 2017. Time: 2:30- 3:30. Place: Condado Plaza Hilton Hotel. Attended the NorthAmeriCon ‘17: The 2017 North American Science Fiction Convention. July 6-9, 2017. Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino, San Juan.

CREATIVE PUBLICATIONS: Poetry collection Ricantations (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2018) has been named a Summer Recommendation by the British Poetry Book Society. Debut poetry collection The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2011) received the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature in the category of poetry and was short listed for the 2012 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in the Forward poetry prizes. Poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Poetry 2016, Vox Populi Sphere, BIM, Caribbean Beat Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, The Caribbean Review of Books, Poui: The Cave Hill Literary Annual, Susumba’s Book Bag, Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters, WomanSpeak, PN Review, Smartish Pace, Past Simple, Ekphrastic Review, A Congeries of Poetry at Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Live Encounters, TriQuarterly Review, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, The Missouri Review, The Antioch Review, Cimarron Review and Poet Lore. Poems have also been anthologized in The Forward Book of Poetry 2013, How Much Earth, The Forward Book of Poetry, Pushcart Prize XXI, TriQuarterly New Writers, and Puerto Rico en mi Corazón.

INTERVIEWED: Bishop, Jacqueline. "My Fascination is with a Future that Could Be: Interview with poet Loretta Collins Klobah." Caribbean Strong Interview series. Book Ends, ed. Sharon Leach. The Jamaica Observer. May 27 and June 3, 2018. Capildeo, Vahni. "Sentient of How We are Related: Loretta Collins Klobah Talks Ricantations." PN Review. Issue 242. July-August 2018. 54-58. In print and online at https://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10281 Lim, Ann-Margaret. "One Drop Magical, but also Real: Ricantations, an Interview with Loretta Collins Klobah." (Interview, Part I). The Daily Gleaner (Jamaica). July 1, 2018 http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/art-leisure/20180701/poetic-and-one-drop-magical- also-real-ricantations-interview-loretta Lim, Ann-Margaret. "Finding the Emotional and Human Centre of the Poem. (Interview, Part II). The Daily Gleaner. July 8, 2018. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/art-leisure/20180708/finding-emotional-and-human- centre-poem-ricantations Bagoo, Andre. “I want to write poetry that is alive” (Interview of Loretta Collins Klobah). Caribbean Beat. Issue 117 (September/October- 2012). Online at http://caribbean- beat.com/issue-117/loretta-collins-klobah-%E2%80%9Ci-want-write-poetry- alive%E2%80%9D Pearce, Marsha. “When a Poem Makes the Surface of a Painting Permeable” (Interview with Loretta Collins Klobah and analysis of ekphrastic poetry). ARC Magazine. Thursday, October 4th, 2012. Online at http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2012/10/when-a-poem- makes-the-surface-of-a-painting-permeable/

IN LITERARY NEWS (2108): Lim, Chole. “Ricantations: Chloe Lim reviews a poetry collection of harsh realities and surreal possibilities.” Hong Kong Review of Books, November 18, 2018. https://hkrbooks.com/2018/11/18/ricantations/ Review of my poetry collection Ricantations (2018). October 1, 2018. Reading Groups for Everyone. The Reading Agency. https://readinggroups.org/books/18457673 Review of my poetry collection Ricantations (2018). 'Bookshelf 2018' article in the first issue of the New West Indian Guide 2019. Informed October, 2018. Staff, Harriet. “Vahni Capildeo Talks to Loretta Collins Klobah About Poetry in the Caribbean Diaspora.” Poetry Foundation. July 18, 2018. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2018/07/vahni-capildeo-talks-to-loretta-collins- klobah-about-poetry-in-the-caribbean-diaspora Rumens, Carol. “Poem of the Week; “Spathes” by Loretta Collins Klobah. The Guardian. August 27, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/aug/27/poem-of- the-week-spathes-by-loretta-collins-klobah Ricantations was listed in "Summer Reads: The Best Summer Books, " Ed. Sharon Leach. The Jamaica Observer. July 1, 2018. Ravinthiran, Vidyan. “Ricantations: Selector’s Comments.” Poetry Book Society Summer Bulletin 2018.

MENTIONS IN THE REPEATING ISLAND BLOG: https://repeatingislands.com/2018/06/12/138925/ https://repeatingislands.com/2018/07/06/interview-with-loretta-collins-klobah-sentient-of-how- we-are-related/ https://repeatingislands.com/2018/07/12/pen-translates-award-loretta-collins-klobah-and-maria- grau-perejoan/ https://repeatingislands.com/2018/07/05/poetic-and-one-drop-magical-but-also-real-ricantations- an-interview-with-loretta-collins-koblah-by-ann-margaret-lim/ https://repeatingislands.com/2018/08/01/the-sun-sets-pineapple-literary-event/

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS: Collins Klobah, Loretta. “In Conversation with Marcia Douglas.” (Interview). Bomb Magazine. 145. Fall 2018. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/marcia-douglas/ Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Loretta Collins Klobah Muses on Time and History in Narrative Poetry.” National Poetry Day (Britain). September 2018. https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/time-and-history-in-narrative-poetry/ Collins Klobah, Loretta and Ari Hernández, et al. “Implications for Our Future: An Interview with Tobias Buckell.” Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters, Issue 14, November 2018. http://mokomagazine.org/wordpress/implications-for-our-future-an-interview-with- tobias-buckell/ Collins Klobah, Loretta and Ari Hernández, et al. “Caribbean Woman Superhero! Coming of Age in Dystopian Canada: An Interview with Sharon Lewis.” Moko Caribbean Arts and Letters, Issue 14, November 2018. http://mokomagazine.org/wordpress/caribbean- woman-superhero-coming-of-age-in-dystopian-canada-an-interview-with-sharon-lewis/ Collins Klobah, Loretta and Ari Hernández, et al. “I Could Have Been Susanna from Thistlewood’s Plantation Diary: Jamaican Poet Ann-Margaret Lim Discusses Her Second Poetry Collection Kingston Buttercup.” Il Tolomeo. Accepted July 2018 and forthcoming December 2018 in the online journal (Italy). Collins Klobah, Loretta and Townsend Montilla, et al. “Woman Power I-rising from the Page: In Conversation with Marcia Douglass (New Directions, 2018; Peepal Tree Press, 2016).” Pree. April 2018. https://preelit.com/2018/04/08/woman-power-i-rising-from-the-page- in-conversation-with-marcia-douglas/ Collins Klobah, Loretta and Ari Hernández, et al. “Retracing the Sea’s Crossroads: Interview with Richard Georges.” Pree. April 2018. https://preelit.com/2018/04/08/retracing-the- seas-crossroads-interview-with-richard-georges/ Collins Klobah, Loretta. "Growing a Daughter Through Art." Jonkonnu Arts Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, October 2017, pp. 70-5. Collins Klobah, Loretta. ‘Pakistani Englishness and the Containment of the Muslim Subaltern in Ayub Khan-Din’s Tragi-comedy Film East is East’, South Asian Popular Culture, 1, 2, 2003, 91-108. Reprinted in the anthology Islam and Popular Culture, edited by Anna Piela, published by Routledge in May 2017. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Bringing It All Together: The Creative Process of Artist and Writer Jacqueline Bishop.” Anthurium 13. 2 (2016) https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/vol13/iss2/8/ Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Love How She Flex: The Creative Agility of Artist and Writer Jacqueline Bishop.” Review of The Gymnast and Other Positions. Bookends. The Jamaica Observer. May 1, 2016. Collins Klobah, Loretta. (Introduction to flash fiction collection) Tales of Bedsheets and Departure Lounges/ Histories de camas y aeropuertos, by Montague Kobbé, published by Doghorn Press, Manchester, UK, 2014. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Memory Comes Scrambling like Water: Looking for Home Along Stony Sidewalks and Gullies Fast with Rain.” Book review of Millicent Graham’s poetry collection The Way Home (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2014) published by The Caribbean Writer for Vol. 29. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “‘Eyes Deep and Calm and Agitated as the Sea’: the Fresh Poetic Imagination of Ann-Margaret Lim’s The Festival of Wild Orchid.” Review of Ann- Margaret Lim’s poetry collection The Festival of Wild Orchid (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2012), published in The Caribbean Writer, Vol. 27 (May). Collins, Loretta."'We Shall All Heal': Ma Kilman, the Obeah Woman as Mother-Healer in Derek Walcott's Omeros," Literature and Medicine. (Spring 1995), 146-162. Collins Klobah, Loretta. The Twelve Foot Neon Woman. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2011 (accepted and forthcoming October 2011). Collins Klobah, Loretta. Book review of Andrea Shaw's book The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women's Unruly Bodies. Journal of West Indian Literature. 19:2 (April 2011): 111-116. Collins, Loretta. “Journeying Towards Mount Zion: Changing Representations of Womanhood in Popular Music, Performance Poetry, and Novels by Rastafarian Women.” In The Globalization of Rastafari. Ed. Ian O’Brian Boxill. Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak Publications, 2009, 141-181. Collins, Loretta. “Lizard.” Sierrico 15 (January-March 2009). Collins Klobah, Loretta.“Still Dancing on John Wayne’s Head: Jamaican and Indigenous Collaboration, Dubwise from Canada to Bolivia and Brazil, from Greenland to Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.” Jamaica Journal 30 (January 2007): 40-48. Collins, Loretta. (Six poems). In Kei Miller (Editor), New Caribbean Poetry (poetry anthology of eight emerging Caribbean poets). London: Carcanet Press, 2007. Collins, Loretta. “The Watchman of the City’: Societal Vigilance, Gun Violence, and the Vigilante in Dancehall-based Black British Popular Fiction and Jamaican Film.” In Funso Aiyejina and Paula Morgan (Editors), Caribbean Literature in a Global Context. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Lexicon Trinidad Ltd., 2006. pp. 224-251. Collins, Loretta. "Ribbon Shirts in Rasta Colors: Native American Syncretic Musicial and Visual Strategies of (Jamaican) Resistance in the Performance Costuming, CD Jacket Art, and Lyrical Imagery of Hopi/ Diné Reggae Singjay Loma-Da-Wa," Image and Narrative (The Netherlands). Special Issue on Musical Contestation Strategies, ed. by Bart Vanspauwen. 10 (Spring 2005) http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusica/worldmusica.htm Collins Klobah, Loretta. "Pakistani Englishness and the Containment of the Muslim Subaltern in Ayub Khan-Din's Tragi-comedy Film East is East," South Asian Popular Culture, 1:2 (October 2003), 91-108 (also available on-line). Collins, Loretta. “El Colectivo Tonguas: the Development of a Bilingual, University-level Creative Writing and Performance Poetry Extracurricular Program in the Puerto Rican Context.” In Tony Bastick, Austin Ezenne, Maxine Henry-Wilson (Editor), Teaching Caribbean Students: Research on Social Issues in the Caribbean and Abroad. Kingston, Jamaica: DES, University of the West Indies, Mona, 2003. pp. 117-160. Collins, Loretta."The Harder They Come: Rougher Version," Small Axe: a Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 13 (March 2003): 46-71. Collins, Loretta. "From the 'Crossroads of Space' to the (dis)Koumforts of Home: Radio and Poet as Transmuter of the Word in Kamau Brathwaite's ‘Meridian’ and Ancestors," Anthurium: Caribbean Literary Studies, 1:1 (Fall 2003) http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/home.htm Collins, Loretta. “Review Essay of Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music, by Sw. Anand Prahlad; Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King, by Lloyd Bradley; and Sonidos de Condena: Sociabilidad, historia y politica en la musica reggae de Jamaica, by Jorge Giovannetti,” Sargasso, (2002-1), 127-137. Collins, Loretta."Snow on the Canefields/ (the De-icing of a Canadian City): Jamaican-Candian Identity and Kinetic Language in ahdri zhina mandiela's dark diaspora ...in dub: a dub theatre piece," Sargasso, (Fall 2002), 39-63. Collins, Loretta "Raggamuffin Cultural Studies: X-Press Novels' Yardies and Cop Killers Put Britain on Trial," Small Axe: a Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 9 (March 2001), 70-96. Collins, Loretta. “Review of Rastafari Women: Subordination in the Midst of Liberation Theology, by Obiagele Lake,” Sargasso, (2001), 113-118. Collins, Loretta. “Daughters of Jah: the International Impact of Rastafarian Womanhood in the Caribbean, Britain, Canada and the United States.” In Hamchand Gossai and Nathaniel Samual Murrell (Editor), Religion, Culture and Tradition in the Caribbean. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. pp. 227-255. Collins, Loretta."The Role of Creole Orature, Caribbean Performance Poetry, and Across-class Collaborations in the Development of Jamaican Literary and Popular Arts: An Interview with Mervyn Morris," Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. 6:1 (Spring 1999), 30-65. Collins, Loretta."'Dubbing is a Must': the Rootical Yard Rhythms of Dubfest '97." Dub Missive. 10: 4 (October 1997), 40-45. Collins, Loretta. "Rude Bwoys, Riddim, Rub-a-Dub and Rastas: Caribbean Performative Sounds." In Adalaide Morris (Editor), Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies (pp. 169-193). London and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1997.

RECENT CARIBBEAN BOOK ENDORSEMENTS Ann-Margaret Lim, Kingston Buttercup Richard Georges, Make Us All Islands Andre Bagoo, Burn Shivanee Ramlochan, Everyone Knows I am a Haunting Juleus Ghunta, Tata and the Big Red Bull Joanne Gail Johnson, Sally’s Way

RECENT CARIBBEAN BOOK PREFACE Montague Kobbé, Tales of Beds and Departure Lounges/ Historias de camas y aeropuertos,

COMMUNITY ACTION Biography of Modesto Cepeda. National Endowment for the Arts-National Heritage Fellowships. https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/modesto-cepeda