Jeanetta Calhoun Mish’s most recent books are What I Learned at the War, a poetry collection (West End Press, 2016) and Oklahomeland: Essays (Lamar University Press, 2015). Her 2009 poetry collection, Work Is Love Made Visible (West End Press) won an Oklahoma Book Award, a Wrangler Award, and the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West. Her first collection, a chapbook entitled Tongue Tied Woman, won the 2001 Edda Poetry Chapbook for Women Competition. In 2009, she earned her Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Oklahoma. Mish was appointed Oklahoma State Poet Laureate on March 22, 2017 and was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets in 2019.
Mish has published poetry in This Land, Naugatuck River Review, Concho River Review, LABOR: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, World Literature Today, San Pedro River Review, About Place Journal, Mojave River Review, Halvard-Johnson’s Truck, Sundress Best Dressed, and Yellow Medicine Journal, among others. Essays and short fiction have appeared in Oklahoma Today, Sugar Mule, Crosstimbers, Red Dirt Chronicles, Hard Crackers, and The Emily Dickinson Society International Bulletin's essay series, “Poet to Poet.”
Anthology publications include poems in The Eloquent Poem, Returning the Gift, and The Colour of Resistance as well as the introductory essay for Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me: New Oklahoma Writing.
Mish is editor of Mongrel Empire Press which was recognized as 2012 Publisher of the Year by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.
Mish serves as contributing editor for World Literature Today, Oklahoma Today, and Sugar Mule: A Literary Journal; she also serves on the board of OKC LitFest and Returning the Gift Indigenous Writers Festival.
Dr. Mish is Director of The Red Earth Creative Writing MFA @ Oklahoma City University where she also serves as advisor to Red Earth Review and as a faculty mentor in writing pedagogy, professional writing, and the craft of poetry. For more information, visit www.tonguetiedwoman.com.
