University of Southern California
USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Cecilia Genevieve WolochAssociate Professor (Teaching) of EnglishContact Information E-mail: woloch@usc.edu Phone: (213) 740-3735 Office: THH 442 LINKS Curriculum Vitae |
Biographical Sketch |
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| Cecilia Woloch is the recipient of a 2011 NEA fellowship and the author of five collections of poems, most recently Carpathia, published by BOA Editions, Ltd., in September 2009. Her previously published books are Sacrifice (Cahuenga Press 1997;reprinted by Tebot Boch 2005), a BookSense 76 selection in 2001; Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem (Cahuenga Press 2002); Late, (BOA Editions 2003) for which she was named Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry for 2004; and a chapbook, Narcissus, chosen winner of the Tupelo Press Snowbound Competition and published by Tupelo in 2008. Individual poems have appeared in such journals and magazines as Tin House, Nimrod, New Letters and Zyzzyva; have been broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio's The Writers' Almanac and featured in the nationally syndicated column American Life in Poetry; and have been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2005, Billy Collins' 180 More (Extraordinary Poems for Every Day), Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times, When She Named Fire,an anthology of contemporary women poets edited by Andrea Hollander Budy and published by Autumn House Press in 2008, and many others. Her poems have been translated into French, German and Polish, and recent prose has been published in Ukrainian. She has also published essays, reviews and interviews; her essay, "Carpathian Dreams," was awarded the Scott Russell Sanders Prize from the journal Elsewhere and will be published as a limited edition chapbook in late 2009/early 2010. A celebrated teacher, Ms. Woloch has conducted poetry workshops for thousands of young people throughout the U.S. and around the world, as well as workshops for professional writers, educators, participants in Elderhostel programs for senior citizens, inmates at a prison for the criminally insane, and residents of a shelter for homeless women. The founding director of Summer Poetry in Idyllwild and of The Paris Poetry Workshop, she is currently a lecturer in the creative writing program at the University of Southern California. In 2008, a grant from USC's Center for Excellence in Teaching allowed her and her colleague Aimee Bender to launch a new course, "The Writer in the Community," devoted to preparing the next generation of Creative Writing instructors. Cecilia collaborates frequently with artists in other disciplines, travels widely in the United States and Europe, speaks French moderately well and is currently learning Polish. | |
Education |
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 M.F.A. Creative Writing, Antioch University
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B.A. English and Theater Arts, Transylvania University
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Description of Research |
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Summary Statement of Research Interests |
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| I was once asked, after giving a reading at a theater in the town of Rzeszow in southeastern Poland, how it felt to write in English yet “have a Polish soul.” I answered that my soul didn’t have a nationality – at least, I hoped it didn’t have one, and I hoped the same was true for all souls. I asked myself, as I’ve asked so many times in recent years, how it’s happened that we’ve come to identify ourselves – our very “souls” – with lines drawn on maps -- lines that have much more to do with empires and wars and territorial claims and claims to power than with any coherent “ethnicity” or "identity," lines that are constantly – and have constantly been – shifting. This question, especially as it applies to my personal and family history, has become the foundation of a research project that has spanned more than a decade. As a starting point to my research, I set out on an exploration into the past of my father’s mother, Mary, whose mysterious death before I was born seemed to me the most closely guarded of my family’s secrets. From there, I have begun piecing together the story of my family, and slowly recreating a complicated and fragmented history that has, for generations, been purposefully erased – not only by national and sometimes totalitarian governments, but also by family members themselves. I have spent ten years travelling in Eastern Europe (Poland/Ukraine), beginning soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I found my way to the village where my grandmother was born, and am trying to reconstruct what happened there -- politically, historically, socially, economically -- between 1900 & 2000. I have conducted interviews with village elders and the village priest. Now, I am beginning an exploration of our history in America, researching further into my family’s past in order to gain deeper understanding of their involvement in the early labor movement in the U.S., the communist party here, affiliations with organized crime, and how all these have influenced my own sense of identity and the course of my life. Currently, I am preparing to look into records under the Freedom of Information Act, since my grandmother and my father would most likely have had FBI records, and am seeking help in performing in-depth genealogical research. I have also begun to integrate this material into what will become a book-length work of non-fiction prose. | |
Publications |
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Book Review |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Review of Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths. Calyx.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Reviews of Fluorescence (poems by J ennifer K. Dick) and Radiance (poems by Barbara Crooker). Poetry International.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Review of Flourescence by J.K. Dick. Poetry International.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Different Clothes, Same Damn Story: Review of Spot in the Dark, poems by Beth Gylys. The New Southerner.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Review of Weave by Lisa Pasold. Cider Press Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
Review of Whore by Sarah Maclay. Speechless.
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Essay |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"What Are You, Anyway?". Carbondale, Illinois. Crab Orchard Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Kermesz 2008. Ukranian Weekly.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"I'm really not a Waitress... or Am I?", Writers on the Job: Tails of the Non-Writing Life. (Thomas Kennedy & Walter Cummins, Ed.). Titusville, NJ. Writers on the Job (Hopewell Publications).
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
My Carpathians. New Southerner.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Carpathian Dreams. Elsewhere.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Why Am I Here?. Journal of the Polish American Historical Society.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
I'm Really Not a Waitress (Or Am I?). WebDelSol/Writers on The Job.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?. Louisville, KY. New Southerner.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Dog Eared: An Interview with Kathryn Stripling Byer. The New Southerner.
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Journal Article |
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Woloch, C. G. Fireflies. New Ohio Review. No. 6 2009: 77
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Other |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
Introduction, Voices to Come Home To/Poems from the Homeless. Tebot Bach.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Foreword, One of the Cimalores by Carla Panciera. Cider Press Review.
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Poetry Collection |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Carpathia. Rochester, NY. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Narcissus. Tupelo Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Narcissus. Dorset, VT. Tupelo Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
Late. BOA Editions.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2002).
Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem. Los Angeles, CA. Cahuenga Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(1997).
Sacrifice. Los Angeles, CA; Huntington Beach, CA. Cahuenga Press; reprinted by Tebot Bach.
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Poem |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2010).
Pantoum: Le Jardin D'Isabelle. pp. Pg. 191. Bloomington, IN. The San Diego Poetry Annual.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Postcard to Myself from the Lower Carpathians, Spring. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
If What we Love Turns to Glass, How do we Keep it Safe?. Nimrod.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
I'd Like a Love Letter and too much Light in my Eyes. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Really, I Couldn't Say When my Kisses got Closer to your Mouth. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Because New Love Smells Like Grass. New York. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
You Simply Close Your Hand Around Whatever Shines. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
The Silk of Longing is Never Worth What We are Paid. Nimrod.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
Brasov, 1989. New York. BOA Editions, Ltd..
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"If What We Love Turns to Glass ...". Nimrod.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Fireflies". New Ohio Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Carpathia". New Ohio Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"What if you lived ...". Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and Homeless.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"And in these rooms ...". Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and Homeless.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"We didn't have anything ..." (from TSIGAN). Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and Homeless.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"My Mother's Pillow". (T, Ed.). nationally syndicated column. American Life in Poetry.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Fireflies". (Garrison Keiloor, Ed.). Minnesota Public Radio. The Writers Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"My Mother's Birds"/An Introduction to the Prose Poem (anthology). Firewheel Editions.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"For the Birds". (Billy Collins, Ed.). Columbia University Press. Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Seven Years After Your Death,". CA. San Pedro River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Why I Believed, as a Child, that People Had Sex in Bathrooms". (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
43 Rue de Saintonge. (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Lament". (Andrea Hollander Budy, Ed.). (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"On Faith". (Andrea Hollander Budy, Ed.). (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Bareback Pantoum". (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"East India Grill Villanelle". (Andrea Hollander Budy, Ed.). (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"The Pick". (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Cupid's Hunting Fields". (Andrea Hollander Budy, Ed.). (Autumn House Press) Pittsburgh, PA. When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Poets.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Cupid's Hunting Fields". London, England. Resurgence.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Mistake". CA. San Pedro River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2009).
"Anniversary". (Ted Kooser, Ed.). nationally syndicated column. American Life in Poetry.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Tango, rue au Maire. Alhambra Poetry Calendar, 2009.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Proposals". (Garrison Keillor, Ed.). Minnesota Public Radio/NPR. The Writers Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Postcard to Myself from the Lower Carpathians, Spring". Other Voices International Project.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Anniversary". Other Voices International Project.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Shine". Other Voices International Project.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Bareback Pantoum". Other Voices International Project.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Whose Hunger. Broadkill Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
How. Broadkill Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Kind Weather. Broadkill Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Food (Ghost Hunger). Broadkill Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Seven Years After Your Death. Broadkill Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"The Pick". (Ted Kooser, Ed.). nationally syndicated column. American Life in Poetry.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Salt. Connecticut River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Lucifer, Full of Light. Connecticut River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Whose Hunger. Tupelo Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Wish. Tupelo Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Grace. Tupelo Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Best American Erotic Poems: 1800 to the Present. (David Lehman, Ed.). Scribner.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Postcard to Lisa, with Lisa, from Metro Line 1. Limp Wrist.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
House. Limp Wrist.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Known. Limp Wrist.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Return. Limp Wrist.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Anniversary" Narcissus.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
"Bareback Pantoum" & "Pour Vivienne", Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses (anthology).
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
My Old True Love. Java Monkey Anthology.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2008).
Anniversary. Verse Daily (Online).
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
"Nest" from TSIGAN: THE GYPSY POEM, The Moveable Nest: A Mother/Daughter Anthology. (K. Byer, Ed.). Helicon Nine.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
1978. The Writer's Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Who Reminds Me of You. Connecticut River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Selections from Tsigan:The Gypsy Poem - "Simply to fly ...", "A small boy on the rue de Sevigny", & "We ere going by train ...". Dans la Lune.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Akhmatova's Bed. Pool.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
"Lethe" & "Postcard to X from Warsaw, Ulica Piekna". Tin House.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Who Reminds Me of You, When You Could Still Walk - Just Barely. Connecticut River Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Midas. Literary Imagination.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
"Beauty", "Last Words", "Whose Shadow has been Lifted like a Mute Veil from the World". Poemeleon (Online Journal).
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Woloch, C. G.
(2007).
Watching Him Die. Margie Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
"Happy Birthday, Wherever You Are", Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets. Tebot Bach.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
"My Old True Love", Java Monkey Speaks. Poetry Atlanta Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
Why I Believed, As a Child, That People Had Sex in Bathrooms. New Letters.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
"Postcard to Myself from the Lower Carpathians, Spring" & "My Old True Love". roger.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2006).
"Be Always Late" & "Postcard Beginning with a Quote from Mark Chapman ...". Paris. Upstairs at Duroc.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Tango, rue au Maire. Faultline.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
What is This?. Arsenic Lobster.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Bareback Pantoum", Best American Poetry 2005. (Paul Muldoon, Ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Slow Children at Play", Good Poems for Hard Times. (Garrison Keillor, Ed.). Viking.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Slow Children at Play" & "The Hammock", 180 More (Extraordinary Poems for Every Day). (Billy Collins, Ed.). Random House.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Ottava Rima: Lear", In a Fine Frenzy: Poets respond to Shakespeare. University of Iowa Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"After World", Chance of a Ghost. Helicon Nine Editions.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"The Haircut", Java Monkey Speaks. Poetry Atlanta Press.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Postcard to Ilya Kaminsky from a Dream at the Edge of the Sea" & "Postcard to Sarah, with Sarah, from a Bridge in Paris - Which Bridge?". New Delta Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Burning the Doll"/"Spalenie Lalki", "Summer of 1969"/"Lato 1969", "Cabbage"/"Kapusta", & "Probujac moje skrzydla na Wielkanoc". Rzeszow. Nowa Okolica Poetow.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
Postcard to Kim from the Cafe les Philosophes. Cafe Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Wish" & "New Year". Black Rock & Sage.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2005).
"Tango, rue au Maire, 1981" & "Grace". Faultline.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
"Cadea de Depart" & "Wild Common Prayer". Double Room.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
On Faith. The Writer's Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
Slow Children at Play. The Writer's Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
"Blink", Revenge and Forgiveness. Harper Collins.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
"The Pick", Manifestations: The d'Arts Literary Anthology. DeKalb Council for the Arts.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
"Shine", "Au Revoir, Paris", "Girl in a Truck, Kentucky Highway 245", "X. (Anniversary)", & "Ground". Wind.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2004).
Bareback Pantoum. New Letters.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
On Faith. The Writer's Almanac.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
"Custom", So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets. Tebot Bach.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
"El Compadre, Again" & "On Faith", Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage. Grayson Books.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
My Mother's Birds. Sentence.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
Dzien Dobry. Southern Poetry Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
"St. Cecilia, What You Missed" &"Provence". Nimrod.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
Red Curtains. Chatahoochee Review.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
43 rue de Saintonge. Water~Stone.
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
"Stick", "Apres la Lune du Miel", "After World". Natural Bridge.
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Short Story |
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Woloch, C. G.
(2003).
Proposals. Quick Fiction.
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Multimedia Scholarship and Creative Works |
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Multimedia Performance, A grant from USC's Visions & Voices program will allow me to collaborate with colleagues from USC's Cinema and Theatre schools to create a multi-media presentation based on the text of my book, Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem. The performance will also incorporate music, dance and footage from the Shoah Foundation archives., 2012-2013
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Film, Recorded portions of the text of my book-length poem Tsigan to be used as narration for an independent documentary film in production with Paradise Films., 2010-2011
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Reading/Performance, Village Voice Bookshop. Paris, France, May 2010, 2009-2010
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Reading/Performance, Off the Shelf Books, Geneva, Switzerland, May 2010, 2009-2010
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Reading/Performance, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, July 2009, 2009-2010
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poem/dance, Worked collaboratively with the choreographer Ana Leo to create poetic text for a dance entitled "Together with Eyes Closed" performed at Emory University September 2009, 2009-2010
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poem/painting, worked collaboratively with the painter John Weber to create an installation (poem/painting) exhibited as part of the Poetic Dialogues Project at the Chicago Cultural Institute and other venues, 2008-2009
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Advisement |
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Other Advisement or Time Devoted to Students |
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Faculty Advisor: CampuSCommunity Outreach, 2009-2010
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Faculty Advisor: The USC Capoeira Club, 2009-2010
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Faculty Advisor: The Womens Creative Collective for Change, 2009-2010
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Faculty Advisor: The Writer in the Community (student org), 2009-2010
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Teaching Innovations and Multimedia Teaching |
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created website for Eng 404/The Writer in the Community,
Fall
2009
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Honors and Awards |
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2011 literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts., 2011
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Finalist, Binghamton University Milton Kessler Poetry Book Award (Carpathia), 2010-2011
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Finalist, Lynda Hull Memorial Prize in Poetry, Crazy Horse, 2010-2011
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Finalist, Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, 2010-2011
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Finalist, Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry, Nimrod , 2010-2011
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Hunger Mountain Prize for Creative Nonfiction, Runner-up, 2010-2011
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Finalist, California Book Award, 2009-2010
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New Ohio Review Prize in Poetry (First Prize 2009), 2009-2010
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Scott Russell Sanders Prize for the personal essay from the journal Elsewhere , 2009-2010
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Fellowship, Center for International Theatre Development/US Artists Initiative (Poland), 2008-2009
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Finalist, California Book Awards, for Narcissus, 2008-2009
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Center for Excellence in Teaching/F.I.U.T. grant, University of Southern California, 2007-2008
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Tupelo Press Snowbound Series Chapbook Award ,
Fall
2006
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The Living Poem Award for Community Service, Tebot Bach, California, 2005-2006
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Fellowship, Chateau-La Napoule Retreat for Artists, France,
Spring
2006
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Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, Water~Stone, 2003-2004
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New Millenium Writing Awards, 2003-2004
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Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, Nimrod Hardman Awards, 2003-2004
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Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry, Georgia Writers Association,
Spring
2004
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