Kathryn Kirkpatrick
Kathryn Kirkpatrick (born Columbia, South Carolina in 1957) is a poet, scholar, and English professor at Appalachian State University. Her works of poetry focus on the natural world and the ways humans interact with nature, and the ethical treatment of animals. As an academic, she also specializes in Irish literature and culture, which is a common theme in her published works. She has received several awards for her poetry collections. Education. Born into a military family, Kirkpatrick grew up in multiple different places including Texas, Germany, and the Philippines. She received her B.A. in English from Winthrop University , her M.A. in English from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her Ph.D. in Theories of Interpretation from Emory University. Career. Her works include seven poetry collections: "The Body's Horizon" (1996), "Beyond Reason" (2004), "Out of the Garden" (2007), "Unaccountable Weather" (2011), "Our Held Animal Breath" (2012), "Her Small Hands Were Not Beautiful" (2014), and "The Fisher Queen: New & Selected Poems" (2019). She has also written two chapbooks entitled "Looking for Ceilidh" and "The Master's Wife". Kirkpatrick places great emphasis on the ethical treatment of animals and explores the ways in which these issues overlap with  human societal and cultural conflict. Her poetry has been featured in a number of anthologies and other publications, including "Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming"; "Animal Companions, Animal Doctors, Animal People"; "Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses"; "The Carol Adams Reader"; "Don't Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review"; and "Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology". Her academic essays have been published in "New Hibernia Review"; "Eire-Ireland"; "An Sionnach"; "Canadian Journal of Irish Studies"; and "Irish University Review". Kirkpatrick has explored feminist and ecofeminist themes within her works, as well as societal perceptions of  womanhood as women age. Kirkpatrick is a breast cancer survivor and writes about her experience in her 2011 poetry collection, "Unaccountable Weather". She is an English professor at Appalachian State University. Her profile on the university's English Department webpage lists her specialties as poetry and poetics, Irish literature and culture, ecocriticism and ecofeminism, and animal studies. Writings. Scholarly essays. This is a non-exhaustive list. Awards and honors. She was awarded the N.C. Poetry Society's Brockman-Campbell Award for her poetry collections, "The Body's Horizon" (1997), "Our Held Animal Breath" (2013), and "Her Small Hands Were Not  Beautiful" (2015). The North Carolina Literary and Historical Association awarded her with the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Prize for her poetry collections, "Beyond Reason" (2004) and "The Fisher Queen" (2019). Her book, "Out of the Garden" (2007), was a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association poetry award.