CV | Tina Schumann

Synopsis

Author, Boneyard Heresies (Moon City Press/Missouri State University), 2024). Winner of the 2023 Moon City Press Poetry Prize. Forthcoming January 15, 2025. Placed as a runner-up in the Catamaran Poetry Prize, White Pine Press Book Award, Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Award and others.
Author, Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press, 2019). Placed as a finalist in the National Poetry Series, New Issues Poetry Prize, Four Way Books Intro Prize, the Julie Suk Award, and the Copper Canyon Press, Sarabande Books and Tupelo Press annual open submission periods.
Author, Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions, 2017) winner of the Diode Editions Chapbook contest.
Curator & Editor, Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents. An Anthology of Flash Memoir, Personal Essays & Poetry (Red Hen Press, 2017.) Highlights the work of seventy contributors including Richard Blanco, Tina Chang, Lee Young-Li, Timothy Liu, Naomi Shihab Nye, Prageeta Sharma, Ira Sukrungruang, Ocean Vuong and others. Winner of a bronze IPPY award for Multicultural Non-Fiction.
Author, As If (Parlor City Press, 2010) awarded the 2010 Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize. This manuscript was simultaneously chosen as winner of the 2010 Apprentice House Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Poetry Editor, Wandering Aengus Press. http://wanderingaenguspress.com/about.html
Work selected by Garrison Keillor and featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac.http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-27-2019/
Pushcart nominee.
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Class of 2009, Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

Awards & Honors

Publications

About Place Journal: "Worlds Colliding"

American Society: What Poets See: “A Day in the Life” and “A World of Want”

Ascent: “For I Have Sinned”

Atticus Review: “Consider This”

Augury Books.com: “Wednesday”

Bear Review: "Melancholy and Joy Walk into a Bar"

Between Sleeps. The 3:15 experiment 1993-2005, A Collection of Writings
From the Middle of the Night: (en theos Press). Contributor.

Bracken: “A Flurry of Finches” and "Just Yesterday The Crows"

Catamaran: "White Jeans, So Clean"

Coastal Shelf: "Self-Portrait as Barn Seen from the Freeway," and "Nothing Personal"

Crab Creek Review: “After,” “Banishment at Noon” and “Random Winter Day”

Cranky Literary Journal: “This is my Confessional”

Cimarron Review: “Traveling Instructions” and “You Are Here”

Chrysanthemum: “Home”

Diode Poetry Journal: "Self-Portrait as Unreliable Narrator," "The Poet at Fourteen," "Phone Fugue #1," "In Concert," and "Long Distance Dirge."

Dorothy Parker's Ashes: "When Does Happiness Arrive?"

DoveTales. A Literary Journal of the Arts: "Letter of Recommendation," and "Letter of Introduction."

FEAST: Poetry and Recipes for a Full Serving at the Table (Black Lawrence Press): “Seven Ways of Looking at a Corkscrew.”

FERAL. A Journal of Poetry and Art: "Letter of Recognition"

For Love of Orcas. An Anthology: "Interlude" (version #2)

Friends Journal: “Vigil”

Generations Literary Journal: “Momentary Mother”

Harpur Palate: “Autumn”

Hunger Mountain Review: "Poem in Which I Become My Own Fairytale"

Last Call. Wine, Beer and Spirits Anthology: “Seven Way of Looking at a Corkscrew.”

Lily Poetry Review: "Body and Soul," and "That Feeling You're Feeling is Called Languishing."

Michigan Quarterly Review: “Interlude”

Minerva Rising: “Mid-Air”

Motherloss. An Anthology: “Communiqué,” “Gone,” “Not Dead, But Lost, and “Recall”

Nimrod: “Ode to Time, Lance and December Rain” and “Overture (anticipation)”

Northampton Poetry Review: "Verismo" and "Dancing Will Be Mandatory"

One Magazine: "Self-Portrait with Blacktop, Heron, and Doubt."

Oracle Fine Arts Review: “Ocean Fugue”

Paterson Literary Review: "Why I Read the Obits" (version #1)

Palabra: "Heir Apparent," "El Salvador 1972,” and “In Oaxaca”

Parabola: “Vanishing Point”

Pilgrimage Magazine: “Only Then”

Poemeleon: “Sunday”

Poets West Literary Journal: “In Five Parts” and "Let Poem"

Poetry Daily: "Traveling Instructions"

Poetry International: “El Salvador 1972”

Poetry & Place Anthology: “Stoplight Outside Hamburger Harry’s, 2:00 am”

Pontoon Poetry: "Dear Bitter Old Woman of My Future Self" and "Dear Planners of My Funeral"

Pontoon#4, An Anthology of Washington State Poets (Floating Bridge Press): “A Memory in Pink” and “Let Poem”

Rattle: "Dear Morning Commuters"

Raven Chronicles: “In Oaxaca” and “Seven Way of Looking at a Corkscrew.”(Pushcart nomination.)

San Pedro River Review: “Stoplight Outside Hamburger Harry’s, 2:00 am”

Skagit River Poetry Festival 2014 Anthology: “Praising the Paradox”

Snow Monkey: “Dali vs. Dada”

Soundings: “I got those (low-down, dirty) Post-MFA blues”

subTerrain: “It’s Like This” and “Neither Here nor There”

Switched-on Gutenberg: “Bad Weather Romance”

Sundress Publications: “Research Rubato,” and “Phone Fugue#2”

Synapse: “Domestic Argument #1,365”

Southern Humanities Review: "Self-Portrait as Pathetic Fallacy"

Terrain.org: “Another Sunday,” “A Seasonal Accord,” “Home Redux,” “Winter Affirmation,” and “American Morning.” (Contest Finalist)

The American Poetry Journal: “Calculations” and “Friday”

The American Journal of Poetry: “Rehab Fugue #1”

The Ekphrastic Review: “Van Gogh in Chicago," "Dear Andrew Wyeth," and "It's Always Something."

The Coachella Review: "To My Normal Sized Heart"

The Galway Review: "That's Life" and "Sunlight Café"

The Human: “Another Voyage”

The Madrona Project: "October" (reprint)

The Lost River Review: “Central Ave.” and “It is the Night”

The Main Street Rag: "Restoration," "November," and "Why I Read the Obits" (version #2)

The Midwest Quarterly: “Not Dead, But Lost” and “Highway 99”

The Missouri Review: "Catastrophizing: A Love Story, "In the Beginning...,“ "Inquiry: Origin,” “Learning to Fall,” “Self-Portrait as Central Conceit,” and “To Whom It May Concern”

The North Meridian Review: “October,” “Self-Portrait as Shut-in,” and “Isolation Affirmation #3”

The Writer's Almanac/NPR: "A World of Want"

The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine: “Last Call”

Tulsa Review: "Letter of Recommendation" and "Dear Public Restrooms in the Hospital Lobby"

Verse Daily: “Repository," "Calculations," "Another Sunday," and "Self-Portrait with Blacktop, Heron, and Doubt."

MFA Thesis: “The Here and the Gone: On the Representation of Absence and the Ephemeral in Modern Poetry.” 2009. Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

Interviews

The Chapbook Interview. Talk All Things Chapbook. By Laura Madeline Wiseman.12/2/18 http://thechapbookinterview.com/2018/12/02/tina-schumann/
Community College Humanities Review. “Where Are You From”. A Conversation with Tina Schumann. By Sydney Elliott. 7/14/18. https://www.cchumanities.org/connect/publications/journal/
Third Coast Review. Author interview for Two Countries: U.S. Daughters & Sons of Immigrant Parents. By Sherry Zhong. 3/1/18. https://thirdcoastreview.com/2017/10/15/book-preview-interview-with-tina-schumann/

Recordings

RECORDINGS:

- Dorothy Parker's Ashes. Rock and Roll themed issue. "When Does Happiness Arrive" https://www.dorothyparkersashes.com/rock-and-roll/when-does-happiness-arrive
- Poetry Moment. Spokane Public Radio. "For I Have Sinned" 3/25/21 https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/post/yvonne-higgins-leach-reads-i-have-sinned-tina-schumann
- Rattle. "Dear Morning Commuters" 9/30/2020. https://www.rattle.com/dear-morning-commuters-by-tina-schumann/
- The Writer's Almanac. August 27, 2019. "A World of Want". Read by Garrison Keillor. http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-27-2019/
- Terrain.org. 2018. Letter to America. “American Morning”. https://www.terrain.org/2018/poetry/letter-to-america-schumann/
- Pilgrimage Magazine. “Only Then”. https://youtu.be/i5p09Fce2is
- Author interview for Two Countries: U.S. Daughters & Sons of Immigrant Parents. By Paul Nelson. 11/17/17. https://www.paulenelson.com/2017/11/17/two-countries-interview-with-tina-schumann/
- Terrain.org. 2013. Third Annual Poetry contest finalist. “Another Sunday,” “A Seasonal Accord,” “Home Redux,” “Winter, Affirmation.” https://www.terrain.org/2013/poetry/four-poems-by-tina-schumann/

Judge / Editor / Reader

Poetry Editor, Wandering Aengus Press. 2019-present.
Final judge, 2014 Kenai Peninsula Writers’ Contest.
Final judge, 2011 Artsmith Literary Award.
Peer review panel member for the 2009/10 and 2012 ArtSmith Literary Award.
Peer review panel member for 2012- 2016 Artsmith residency fellowship applications.
Curator and pre-judge for the Dwell Press/Artsmith annual solstice broadside contest 2012 and 2013.

Teaching/Workshops/Conferences

Education

Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University: Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, 2009
Copper Canyon Press. Internship: Port Townsend, WA 2007.
University of Washington Extension: Advanced Poetry Writing Certificate, 2002
Centrum Writer's Conference: Port Townsend, WA 2004

Community Involvement

Assistant Director: Artsmith.org 2010-2018
Poetry Editor: Wandering Aengus Press. 2018-Present
Vice-President/Board Member: Seattle Poetry Festival. 1998-2002

Reviews & Blurbs

REVIEWS:

"Tina Schumann’s newest volume of poems, Praising the Paradox, speaks of seasons, relationships, and our wide array of desires. The poet generously takes us with her as she considers facets of a life via skillful poems that please both ear and intellect." By Mary Ellen Talley. Empty Mirror, 2019. Go here for full review: https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/reviews/praising-the-paradox-tina-schumann

"In As If we have a poet completely in her element. The voice/tone is consistent, strong, and each poem communicates with the others. Wait, let me rephrase…. voice/tone doesn’t seem quite right in describing what we have here…attitude is more like it. This book dishes it out without being confrontational, subversion and surprise on every page. The pace/cadence is superbly controlled by intelligent line breaks (which may surprise the reader as these lines can be ridiculously long, the poems bulky, yet it’s all masterfully done), enjambments, and the musicality of Schumann’s diction. She is part Whitman, part prophet of the Americana. Not many poets I know can be both heartbreaking and funny, but Schumann manages to walk the line between grief and guffaw."- Goodreads Community Review by Michael St. Paul, 2011. Go here for full review Goodreads review.

BLURBS:

Boneyard Heresies. (forthcoming)

“I am a Time Machine,” writes Tina Schumann. And it’s true, this collection of poems brings past and present intimately and gloriously together, jostling inside the speaker. What is inherited and what must be borne speak to each other to create a tender portrait: a “history that was never yours,” Schumann writes. Family, desire, and loss—“the hard gulp of fact”—are lovingly and bluntly examined. The poems about the death of the mother make me weep in their authenticity. This is a fine book by a poet with a sharp eye and an open heart. –Fleda Brown, author of The Woods Are on Fire: New and Selected Poems (Univ. of Nebraska Press) and past poet laureate of Delaware.

Tina Schumann's "Boneyard Heresies" bridges the gulf between the living and the dead, life and death. One imagines the divide to be insurmountable yet these poems with their vast imagination, bravery, and power of description demonstrate "how ... the actual / and the evoked converge." These poems are lived-in, copious with earthly things, tangible with the "reverberations of other lives." They travel, yet they reside comfortably in the in-between, the limbo, the hiatus, and, in turn, through memory, dreams, magical thinking, evocation and storytelling, they transcend. –Joseph O. Legaspi, author of Threshold (CavanKarry Press) and cofounder of Kundiman.

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Praising the Paradox. (Red Hen Press 2019)

“Tina Schumann’s Praising the Paradox is a rich guidebook for a life—a grand companion. These deeply satisfying poems, with their lush images and fluid sound movements, unfold in elegance, settling the spirit. In every stanza, Schumann’s honest voice feels compelling and humble— ‘what radiant resignation / to be so much / less than I / could have ever hoped for’—offering largeness of vision, grace, and enormous reading pleasure. ‘I simply left / blank spaces along the way; an ellipse here, a dash there.’ Nothing forced, nothing labored. What a treat.”—Naomi Shihab Nye, chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (2010–2015) and author of 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East and Voices in the Air.

“What I admire most in Praising the Paradox is the resilience throughout and an awareness of the common world that both comforts and devastates. These poems navigate a landscape of loss where what goes on is the sway of stoplights, the waitress with her coffee-pot suspended in mid-air, the everyday moments that gather momentum and make a life. These poems celebrate the small gestures, carrying pain alongside joy, reminding us we are alive.” —Dorianne Laux, author of The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Prize, and Facts About the Moon, winner of the Oregon Book Award.

“Tina Schumann’s stunning new collection is extraordinary in its intelligence. She has organized her poems by locating the innumerable paradoxes in our lives, in our minds, in the world. Her book is brilliantly unique and, I dare say, unrepeatable; she owns this territory. And what is so important about a paradox? The answer is that paradox is what the world is made of. The other (necessary) ingredient here is feeling. Praising the Paradox will make you feel, think, and reflect. Schumann’s lines will resonate in your heart. They will resonate in mine forever.”—Kelly Cherry, Poet Laureate of Virginia (2010–2012) and author of Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Poem.

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Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues. (Diode Editions 2017)

“Few poets make ideas as tactile as Tina Schumann. At once readily accessible and piercingly ambiguous, Requiem: A Patrimony of Fugues presents both the heartbreak and the epiphanies involved in caring for a beloved parent who is gradually fading into self-eradicating dementia. Each deeply elegiac poem stands on its own while serving as yet one more critical juncture in this most remarkable sequence. The volume astonishes not simply because of its consistently remarkable phrasing or its myriad musical nuances, but because of the inventive line-by-line composing and the manifold interpretative possibilities on every page. Schumann’s achievement is that the brilliant verse rendering of her ministrations calls us back to her daughterly devotion over and over.” —Kevin Clark, author of Self-Portrait with Expletives, winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Book Competition, Pleiades Press.

“It’s a rare poet whose words plumb the depths of our lives with the resonant complexity of music; it’s an ambitious poet who attempts this. In Requiem. Patrimony of Fugues, Tina Schumann honestly and fearlessly explores what it means to lose a father to dementia. From the opening “Overture (anticipation)” through the final “Long Distance Dirge,” Schumann shuttles back and forth in time, reweaving her father and their complex relationship in memory as he frays. Despair is here, but so is redemption: “what he taught me with intention—that I could bear my own weight, /that I was stronger than I knew.” Every difficult note rings true; every poem will break open your heart, reminding us of our shared, fragile humanity.”—Holly J. Hughes editor of Beyond Forgetting: Poetry & Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press).

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Two -Countries. US Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents. An Anthology of Flash Memoir, Personal Essays, and Poetry. (Red Hen Press 2017)

“When you hold in your DNA two countries—the cultures, the languages, the delicious foods and stories—you embody richness. These writers know on the cellular level many layered ways to live, to struggle, to love. Here are voices we need to hear, writers we need to read. This is a brilliant, timely book, an antidote to divisiveness.” —Peggy Shumaker, Alaska State Writer Laureate. Author of Gnawed Bones and Just Breathe Normally.

“In their accounts of assimilation and nostalgia, celebration and resistance, the poets and writers in Two-Countries show that one result of our ongoing national experiment is a rich deepening in our literature. We may be in perilous times as a country, but our writers have never been in more ferocious health —Rick Barot, Author of Chord and recipient of the Rilke Prize and the PEN Open Book Award.

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As If (Parlor City Press 2010)

“Tina Schumann's poems in As If address the big questions successfully because the poet is honest in her self-reflective moments, rigorous in her moments of intellectual parry, playful linguistically, and keen in her perceptions of those off-the-radar states of being that are so tricky to catch in an accurate way. She refuses to be overwhelmed by the enormity of her task. Her reliance on tonal shifts, formal arrangement and personal accountability make for a collection that strips away the artifices of consolation even as it strives to bless.” —Lia Purpura, author of It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful (Viking/Penguin) and finalist for the National Book Award.

“In As If we have a poet completely in her element. The voice/tone is consistent, strong, and each poem communicates with the others. Wait, let me rephrase…. voice/tone doesn’t seem quite right in describing what we have here…attitude is more like it. This book dishes it out without being confrontational, subversion and surprise on every page. The pace/cadence is superbly controlled by intelligent line breaks (which may surprise the reader as these lines can be ridiculously long, the poems bulky, yet it’s all masterfully done), enjambments, and the musicality of Schumann’s diction. She is part Whitman, part prophet of the Americana. Not many poets I know can be both heartbreaking and funny, but Schumann manages to walk the line between grief and guffaw.”- Goodreads Community Review by Michael St. Paul, 2011.

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Copyediting Credits

LITERARY COPYEDITOR

• Vanish, poems by Kevin Miller (Wandering Aengus Press 2019)
• Feeding Hour, poems by Jessica Gigot (Wandering Aengus Press 2020)
• Dor, poems by Alina Ștefănescu (Wandering Aengus Press 2021)
• Gunner, poems by Gerry McFarland (Wandering Aengus Press 2021)
• Tales of a Distance, poems by Andrew Gottlieb (Wandering Aengus Press 2022)
• Firmament, poems by Christopher Martin (Wandering Aengus Press 2023)
• When I Say the Bones, I Mean the Bones, poems my Amanda Hawkins, (Wandering Aengus Press 2024)
• Wild Silence, poems by Benjamin Cutler (Wandering Aengus Press 2024)
• Learning to Hold, poems by Jed Myers (Wandering Aengus Press 2025)
• It Wasn't Easy to Reach You, poems by Daniel Meltz, (Wandering Aengus Press 2025)

Endorsements

A Different Kind of War. Uneasy Encounters in Mexico and Central America. by J. Malcolm Garcia. (Fomite Press, 2021)

https://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind-War-Encounters-Central/dp/1953236189

"This collection illustrates that while one writer cannot save the world and all its woes, he can write about those individuals risking their own well-being to help others, and in turn make a difference in all our lives by chronicling their stories of compassion, mercy and fortitude as Garcia so lyrically does in A Different Kind of War."

—Tina Schumann, editor, Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents, and author of Requiem: A Patrimony of Fugues.

Low-water's Edge. Poems by Jean A. Kingsley. (Headmistress Press, 2020)

https://headmistress-press.square.site/product/low-water-s-edge-by-jean-a-kingsley/77?cs=true&cst=custom

"In Jean A. Kingsley's moving collection Low-water's Edge, nature itself comes to a full stop to listen to a world in the throes of constant change. Be it personal or global, here are the bruises and scars that accumulate on body and soul over a lifetime spent negotiating the daily vicissitudes of danger and beauty, love and loss. From the vast patchwork of a night sky to "dark birds that cannot fly" and the almost stifling intimacy of a backyard that whispers "tend to me, tend to me" these poems invite the reader into the endless dance of life and death where "Somewhere brown cows bow to no one/while a mourner idly adjusts her veil."
-Tina Schumann, author of Praising the Paradox, and Requiem: A Patrimony of Fugues.

The Distance is More Than an Ocean. A Travelogue Memoir. By Chris Wiewiora

(Finishing Line Press, 2020)

“What is family? Where is home? Can we trust memory and how does that faulty mechanism define us? Are you the country of your birth, your heritage, a language? Or an amalgamation of each? The desperate landscape of childhood and the distortion of time and distance over the often-rough road called ‘Growing Up’ are all explored in Chris Wiewiora‘s honest and poignant memoir. In his retrospective chronicle we are reminded that these fundamental human questions follow us through the seasons of a life, form our personal narrative, and ultimately make each of us unique.”–Tina Schumann, poet and editor of Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents.

Between Dream and Flesh. Poems by Jed Myers (Egress Studio Press, 2018)

https://www.jedmyers.com/betweeen-dream-and-flesh

"In these luminous poems by Jed Myers we come to see that what surfaces in dreams may be no less real than our waking life. With the flesh “a nomad’s house,” always fragile and temporary, and those we love “like galaxies passing through one another.” These poems beg so many vital questions; is love a battle resolved in tenderness? Can we ultimately forgive our parents in their final wretched state? How do we remain complex corporal beings yet recognize that each of us is a “patchwork tent of a self.” With each lyrical line we are reassured that memories do permeate the flesh and become a systemic part of us, perhaps even follow us into the next life. Illuminating the reader along the way, these poems make it clear that moment by moment, whether conscious or in dreams, we choose this life. Over and over we reclaim our griefs, our loves, our memories, the body’s pleasures and deteriorations. The symphony of life that exists between dream and flesh."
– Tina Schumann, author of Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions) and editor of Two-Countries. U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents (Red Hen Press)

Curriculum Vitae