Christopher A Cokinos
- Professor, English
Contact
- (520) 621-1836
- MODERN LANGUAGE, Rm. 445
- TUCSON, AZ 85721-0067
- cokinos@arizona.edu
Biography
Christopher Cokinos is the director of the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Arizona, and author of the literary nonfiction books The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars and Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds, both from Tarcher/Penguin, as well as Bodies, of the Holocene, a lyric prose collection in Truman State University Press’s Contemporary Nonfiction Series. His poetry chapbook, Held as Earth, is out from Finishing Line Press. With Eric Magrane, he has co-edited an anthology of contemporary nature writing called A Literary Field Guide to the Sonoran Desert, forthcoming from Arizona in 2016. His work has been praised or featured in such venues as The Chicago Tribune, Mid-American Review, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Natural History, All Things Considered, and People magazine. His poems, aphorisms, reviews, criticism, microfiction, and essays have appeared in december, Western Humanities Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Poetry, Pank, Hotel Amerika, The Volta, High Desert Journal, Extrapolation, Science, Orion, terrain.org, The New York Times, and The American Scholar, among many other venues. Cokinos contributes essays semi-regularly to High Country News and the Los Angeles Times. He is the winner of a Whiting Award, the Fine-Line Prize for Lyric Prose, the Glasgow Prize, an American Antiquarian Society Artists Fellowship, the John Burroughs Prize for Best Nature Essay (in 2007), a National Science Foundation Antarctic Visiting Artist and Writer Fellowship and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. He’s been a semi-finalist for the Saroyan Prize and a finalist for the Utah Book Award. His research has taken him from a rocket-engine test to a stint as a crew journalist at the Mars Desert Research Station, from 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle to the South Pole. He founded and edited Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature & Science Writing at Utah State University until it was closed for budgetary reasons. The magazine won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Current projects include “Sweet Lesion,” a poetry manuscript in circulation; “Keepsake & Egress,” a new poetry collection; and “Recivilization: Six Heresies to Keep a Planet Running,” an essay collection on massive technological approaches to contemporary environmental conditions. At the University of Arizona, he is a Udall Center Environmental Policy Fellow, Affiliated Faculty with the Institute of the Environment and an Associate Professor of English. Cokinos divides his time between Tucson and Logan Canyon, Utah.
Degrees
- M.F.A. Creative Writing
- Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- The Earth Movers
Work Experience
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona (2011 - Ongoing)
- Utah State University, Logan, Utah (2009 - 2011)
- Utah State University, Logan, Utah (2002 - 2009)
- Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas (1991 - 2001)
Awards
- 2016 New American Press Poetry Prize
- Independent poetry and fiction publisher New American Press (with books by Lee K. Abbot, others)., Fall 2016
- Arizona-New Mexico Book Award
- Arizona-New Mexico Booksellers Co-op., Fall 2016
- Southwest Book Award
- Pima County Library, Fall 2016
- Public Outreach Fellowship
- Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. Awarded May 2016., Spring 2016
- See all for 2015 listed below
- HonorsIn spring 2015 I received Mentor of the Year from the Graduate and Professional Student Council.In spring 2015 I received a residency at the nationally prestigious artists’ colony at Ucross. While there, I did work on the Mars chapters of my book-in-project, Re-Civilization: Six Heresies to Keep a Planet Running. I also worked on new poems for a manuscript that is now circulating called The Archives of Obsolete Futures.My work was praised in the following journals: ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (for Bodies, of the Holocene) 22.2 (Spring 2015): 434. My book was called “startling, lyrical.” Science Fiction Studies (for contributions to Deep Ends: The J.G. Ballard Book and to Orbiting Ray Bradbury’s Mars: Biographical, Anthropological, Literary, Scientific and Other Perspectives) 42.2 (July 2015): 389, 391-392.Western American Literature (for Bodies, of the Holocene) 50.3 (Fall 2015): 250-256. “Cokinos’s vignettes evoke vast ranges of space and time…archaic, ultimately geologic timescapes…”Extrapolation (for contributions to Deep Ends: The J.G. Ballard Book) 56.3 (Winter 2015): 381-382. Journal of American Culture (for my essay “The Desert is Earth and Mars: An Ecocritical, Bachelardian Exploration of ‘“And the Moon Be Still as Bright— ’” and It Came from Outer Space” in Orbiting Ray Bradbury’s Mars: Biographical, Anthropological, Literary, Scientific and Other Perspectives) September 2015: 304. “Cokinos’s knowledge of ecocriticism and prior scholarship on Bradbury’s work impresses, as does his close reading from those lenses. It is perhaps the most impressive among many impressive essays.”In November I was selected as Journalism and Media Fellow by UCLA’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability. While in L.A., I conducted interviews with multiple UCLA faculty and visited a nuclear fusion research facility for Re-Civilization. (I also folded in a separate trip to Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station.)In fall 2015 I was selected for and began to participate in the Academic Leadership Institute.The Arizona Daily Star article, “Stretching the Canvas: Museum Mixes Art, Science to Reach More,” on Dec. 27, 2015, C1-C2, contained a small profile of my current work., Spring 2015
- Pushcart Prize Nominations for Three Poems
- The Pushcart Prize Board of Editors, Winter 2014 (Award Nominee)
- ASLE Publishing Grant
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. Grant to support publication of "A Literary Field Guide to the Sonoran Desert," which I am co-editing with Eric Magrane and which is under contract with the University of Arizona Press., Summer 2014
- 2014-2015 Udall Center Environmental Policy Fellowship
- Udall Center for Public Policy, Spring 2014
- Mars Desert Research Station Writer in Residence
- The Mars Society, Spring 2014
Interests
Teaching
Creative writing, creative nonfiction writing, poetry, American nature writing, sexual autobiography, history of science fiction.
Research
Science-and-nature writing, including geoengineering, terraforming, nuclear power, de-extinction, genetic engineering, place-based writing, poetry writing, space sciences, sexuality, the body.
Courses
2021-22 Courses
-
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Spring 2022) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Spring 2022) -
Intermed Nonfiction Writ
ENGL 301 (Spring 2022) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Spring 2022) -
Modern Literature
ENGL 596H (Spring 2022) -
Thesis
ENGL 910 (Spring 2022) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Fall 2021) -
Intermed Nonfiction Writ
ENGL 301 (Fall 2021) -
Studies in Genres
ENGL 310 (Fall 2021)
2020-21 Courses
-
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 401 (Spring 2021) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Spring 2021) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Spring 2021) -
Prblms SocCult & Crtcl Thry
SCCT 510 (Spring 2021) -
Thesis
ENGL 910 (Spring 2021) -
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 401 (Fall 2020) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Fall 2020) -
Intermed Nonfiction Writ
ENGL 301 (Fall 2020) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Fall 2020) -
Thesis
ENGL 910 (Fall 2020)
2019-20 Courses
-
Advanced Poetry Writing
ENGL 409 (Spring 2020) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Spring 2020) -
Intermed Nonfiction Writ
ENGL 301 (Spring 2020) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Spring 2020) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Fall 2019) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Fall 2019) -
Intermed Nonfiction Writ
ENGL 301 (Fall 2019) -
Modern Literature
ENGL 596H (Fall 2019)
2018-19 Courses
-
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 401 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Spring 2019) -
Literature and Film
ENGL 300 (Spring 2019) -
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 401 (Fall 2018) -
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 501 (Fall 2018) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Fall 2018)
2017-18 Courses
-
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Fall 2017)
2016-17 Courses
-
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Spring 2017) -
Independent Study
ENGL 499 (Spring 2017) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Spring 2017) -
Internship
ENGL 593 (Spring 2017) -
Literature and Film
ENGL 300 (Spring 2017) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Spring 2017) -
Studies in Genres
ENGL 310 (Spring 2017) -
Adv Crtv Non-Fict Writ
ENGL 501 (Fall 2016) -
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Fall 2016) -
Modern Fiction
ENGL 472 (Fall 2016)
2015-16 Courses
-
Honors Thesis
ENGL 498H (Spring 2016) -
Independent Study
ENGL 599 (Spring 2016) -
Internship
ENGL 593 (Spring 2016) -
Master's Report
ENGL 909 (Spring 2016) -
Studies in Genres
ENGL 310 (Spring 2016)
Scholarly Contributions
Books
- Cokinos, C. A. (2016). The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide. Tucson: U of Arizona P.More infoI co-edited this award-winning field guide/anthology (the first of its kind) with poet and geographer Eric Magrane, drawing together contributions from southwest writers and art by Paul Mirocha. Magrane and I co-wrote the natural history selections for each species, and we presented work from the anthology at the Tucson Festival of Books and the Northern Arizona Book Festival, among other venues. Positive reviews including notices in Western American Literature and the Los Angeles Review.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). Held as Earth. Finishing Line Press.
Journals/Publications
- Cokinos, C. A. (2016). All my poetry, nonfiction and interviews are included for 2016 are included here.. See below.More infoNonfiction• “In 1966, when the Moon got its Close-up, Earthlings were Amazed." Los Angeles Times. 24 November 2016. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cokinos-anniversary-of-copernicus-crater-image-20161124-story.html• “Staying Sane in a Time of Trump.” Los Angeles Times. 15 August 2016.http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cokinos-trump-campaign-20160815-snap-story.html• “Nonfiction Writer Jeffrey Toobin Hates a Genre He’s Never Read.” Essay Daily 12 August 2016. http://www.essaydaily.org/2016/08/the-malcontent-disagrees-with-jeffrey.htmlPoetry• “The Letter Q with an Arrow Running Through It.” december 21.7 (Spring/Summer 2016): 79-80.• “The Lovers,” “Personal Values,” and “The Haunted Castle.” Jelly Bucket 6 (2016): 81-84.• “The Boneyard,” “Nacelle,” and “The Collected Works of Sunday Afternoon.” Front Porch 31 (2016): http://frontporchjournal.com/issue-31-2/three-poems-2/• “You searched for : memento mori,” “You searched for : jubilat,” “Repair.” Diagram 15.6 (2016): http://thediagram.com/15_6/cokinos.html• “The Threatened Assassin.” Artful Dodge 52/53 (2016): 23.Criticism (non-peer-reviewed)• “A Darker Force: Cedric Delsaux’s Dark Lens.” The New York Review of Science Fiction (March 2016). 22-23.Interviews I conducted with other writers• “The Ethics of Geoengineering: An Interview with Oliver Morton.” 24 March 2016. Pacific Standard. https://psmag.com/the-ethics-of-geoengineering-an-interview-with-oliver-morton-5963d448894e#.e7jt4ymjm• “On Recreating Earth: An Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson.” 30 May 2016. Terrain.org http://www.terrain.org/2016/interviews/kim-stanley-robinson/These appeared throughout the year, but I put Fall 2016 in the field to satisfy the system input requirements.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). Birthday of the Burning Boot. High Country News, 27.More info• “Birthday of the Burning Boot.” High Country News (3 March 2014): 27.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). Intermission (poem). District Lit.More info• “Intermission.” District Lit (2014). districtlit.com/post/97225768036/Christopher-cokinos
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). The 21st-Century Nature Poem: A Response to Greg Wrenn & Haute Ecology (two separate pieces). Mudlark.More info• “The 21st-Century Nature Poem: A Response to Greg Wrenn” & “Haute Ecology.” Mudlark 90 (2014). www.unf.edu/mudlark/flashes/cokinos.html
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). The Amorous Vista (poem). Sugar House Review, 90.More info• “The Amorous Vista.” Sugar House Review 10 (2014): 90.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). The Betrayal of Images (poem). Saranac Review, 217.More info"The Betrayal of Images.” Saranac Review 10 (2014): 217.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). The Passenger Pigeon's Legacy.... Orion Magazine, 18-25.More info• “The Passenger Pigeon’s Legacy: Hope and Heresy in an Age of Extinction.” Orion (Summer Special Issue 2014): 18-25.Research-based personal essay.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). The Pastoral Complexities of Clifford Simak: The Land Ethic and Pulp Lyricism in Time and Again. Extrapolation, 55(2), 133-152.More info• “The Pastoral Complexities of Clifford Simak: The Land Ethic and Pulp Lyricism in Time and Again.” Extrapolation 55.2 (Summer 2014): 133-152.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). Tumamoc Hill, Birthplace of Restoration Ecology. LA Times.More info• “Tumamoc Hill, Birthplace of Restoration Ecology.” Los Angeles Times. 28 August 2014. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cokinos-restoration-ecology-history--and-20140829-story.html
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “Blood of the World.” Poem. New Delta Review.More info• “Blood of the World.” New Delta Review 4.2 (Spring/Summer 2014): http://ndrmag.org/poetry/2014/04/the-blood-of-the-world/ Nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “Flowers of the Abyss" (poem). Saltfront, 56-57.More info• “Flowers of the Abyss.” Saltfront 2 (Summer 2014): 56-57.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “The Difficult Crossing.”. december.More info•“The Difficult Crossing.” december 25.1 (Spring/Summer 2014): 124.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “The Reckless Sleeper” and “Time Transfixed.” Poems. Permafrost, 44-45.More info• “The Reckless Sleeper” and “Time Transfixed.” Permafrost 36.2 (Summer 2014): 44-45.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “White Paper : Echo & Slope.” Poem. terrain.More info“White Paper : Echo & Slope.” Terrain.org. 4 Sept. 2014. http://terrain.org/2014/poetry/one-poem-by-christopher-cokinos/
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “You’re Tired of Listening to the Giantess” and “Empty Mask, You Should Have Snapped its Neck.” Poems.. Berkeley Poetry Review, 47-48.More info“You’re Tired of Listening to the Giantess” and “Empty Mask, You Should Have Snapped its Neck.” Berkeley Poetry Review 44 (2014): 47-48.
- Cokinos, C. A. (2014). “You’re a Young Girl Eating a Bird,” “You’re a Merman Hanging from a Gibbet,” and “The Healer Asks, ‘What is the Reason for Your Appointment Today?’” (poems). Western Humanities Review, 8-10.More info• “You’re a Young Girl Eating a Bird,” “You’re a Merman Hanging from a Gibbet,” and “The Healer Asks, ‘What is the Reason for Your Appointment Today?’” Western Humanities Review LXVIII.II (Summer 2014): 8-10. First two poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Others
- Cokinos, C. A. (2015, All). All my work.More infoThe following is all my creative activity.Creative ActivityI spent much of the spring working with co-editor Eric Magrane writing the natural history sections for species we’ve included in the forthcoming book The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide. I also worked with Eric on final selections, solicitations, edits, copy-edits, conferencing with UA Press, etc.For my Udall fellowship, I gave talks to the Udall Center, the Law School’s Sustainability Seminar and its Environmental Breakfast Club.I finished research and drafting of my Mars chapter and began researching and drafting a chapter on nuclear power, with extensive reading and site visits to EBR-I at the Idaho National Lab and Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station, as well as UCLA (see Honors section).To that end, I attended the Breakthrough Institute Dialogue 2015, which put me in touch with the burgeoning movement of so-called “ecological modernists.”I gave presentations at AWP, ASLE, Western American Literature, Cal Lutheran and Chico State.I finished drafting a new poetry collection, The Archive of Obsolete Futures.My other collection, still circulating, was a semi-finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize, and a finalist at Kentucky.Publications:Prose:• “In Arizona, the People Move Ahead of the Politicians.” High Country News/Writers on the Range Web Exclusive (25 June 2015): https://www.hcn.org/articles/in-arizona-the-people-move-ahead-of-the-politicians.• “Organized Curiosity: Creative Writers and the Research Life.” The Writer’s Chronicle 47.5 (March/April 2015): 92-104.• “Come all ye failures.” Pacific Standard. 31 Dec. 2015. http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/epic-fail• “Perfect Sense” (review of the film on DVD). Science Fiction Film and Television 8.3 (2015): 411-414. (peer-reviewed)Poetry: • “The Lovers,” “Personal Values,” and “The Haunted Castle.” Jelly Bucket 6. 2015: 81-84. Featured poet for this issue.• “Copy.” Ecotone 19 (Spring 2015): 154-155. 10th anniversary issue.• “You searched for : eclogue.” Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review 43 (2015): 3.• “Logan Dry Canyon.” Weber: The Contemporary West 32.1 (Fall 2015): 101.• “Rail Cars Passing in the Desert at Sunset Near a Port of Entry.” GeoHumanities 1.1 (2015): 177-178.• Selected aphorisms reprinted in Short Flights: 32 Modern Writers Share Aphorisms of Insight, Inspiration and Wit. Eds. James Lough and Alex Stein. Tucson: Schaffner, 2015: 159-162.• “Splinter & Tangle.” TYPO 22 (2015): http://www.typomag.com/issue22/cokinos.html• “Fall 1962,” “Flying Clouds, Arizona,” “You Searched for : Elegy, then for Ode.” Blackbox Manifold 15 (2015): http://www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/issue15/ChristopherCokinosBM15.html• “Nacelle,” “The Boneyard,” “The Collected Works of Sunday Afternoon.” Front Porch (2015): http://frontporchjournal.com/issue-31-2/three-poems-2/• “You searched for : aubade,” “At 11,000 Feet, Everything is Proudly Made in China,” “The Nazis at White Sands.” Watershed Review (Spring 2015): http://www.csuchico.edu/watershed/2015-spring/poetry/cokinos-christopher.shtml. “You searched for : aubade” nominated for Best of the Net 2015.
