She is the recipient of of several major poetry awards, including the Dylan Thomas American Poet Prize, Richard Peterson Prize and Ann Stanford Prize. Some of her published works include, Eye of Water: Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005) which won the Cave Canem Prize and The Rabbits Could Sing: Poems (University of Alaska, 2012). Her poetry has appeared in Zyzzyva, Callaloo, Orion Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Literary Review and Crab Orchard Review, among other publications. She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998. She joined the ECU faculty in 2012.