معرفی
Michelle Naka Pierce serves as Core Professor at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where she has taught for over 20 years and previously held roles as inaugural dean of the school and director of the Writing Center.
Her academic credentials include:
- BA, University of New Mexico
- MA, University of New Mexico (with distinction)
- MFA, Naropa University
Pierce's creative scholarship centers on embodied poetics through experimental frameworks exploring memory as it fails, matrilineal bodily narratives, illness, healing, and endurance. Her work interrogates liminal spaces between architecture and the body while engaging somatic rituals and ekphrastic traditions. As a mixed-race artist born in Japan and raised in the United States, she investigates hybrid identity through migratory patterns across languages, seasons, and cultural boundaries.
Recent publications like the chapbook MAMA demonstrate her signature approach of stitching personal history with broader cultural narratives through poetic resilience. Her writing consistently bridges intimate matrilineal experiences with universal themes of survival, using language as a living medium for processing trauma and memory loss.
Her distinguished recognition includes:
- Poets Out Loud Editor’s Prize for Continuous Frieze Bordering Red
Pierce mentors thesis students across BA and MFA programs through embodied writing practices emphasizing risk-taking and the Japanese concept of Nana Korobi Ya Oki (fall seven times, rise eight). Her pedagogy integrates dance, contemplative rituals, and intention-setting frameworks to cultivate linguistic experimentation.
She actively collaborates with cross-disciplinary artists including visual creators like Sue Hammond West and writing collectives for projects such as QUARTER LIGHT and Exposure, forming creative teams that explore ritualistic approaches to seasonal transitions and intercultural dialogue.
