Peter Streckfus
Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust/American Academy of Arts and Letters
September 6, 2013–August 1, 2014
Profession
Assistant Professor, Department of English, George Mason University
Project title
Water and Plastic
Project description
For my third collection of poems, I am using the working title Water and Plastic, thinking of these terms as environmental, biological, and cultural signs for growth, change, and destruction. The poems begin with personal and textual studies of hydrological spaces, such as the low-lying Takuu atoll of Papua New Guinea, the cities of New Orleans and Venice, and the Netherlands. When my family arrives in Rome September, my first child, a girl, will be fifteen months old. Being in the presence of her new life, envisioning the shores she will occupy in the future, will be central to this new work.