Who I Am

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish is a native Oklahoman returned home after twenty years to earn her Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of Oklahoma and to grow good tomatoes. Her poetry collection, Work Is Love Made Visible, was published by West End Press (in partnership with the University of New Mexico Press) in March 2009. She lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with her husband, an engineering professor; they have a combined family of three sons, all between the ages of 17 and 19. Her mother and grandmother live just down the road. She has participated in poetry readings and workshops for more than 20 years, including repeat performances as a founding member of the Woody Guthrie Poets at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma. Other venues include Telluride Institute’s Native American Writers Program; The Taos Poetry Circus Invitational Reading; Red Dirt Book Festival; Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, C.W. Post Poetry Center at LIU; New York State Writers Institute Community Voices Series and Readings Against the End of the World, both in Albany, NY; and The Knitting Factory in New York City. Jeanetta’s first collection of poetry, Tongue Tied Woman, won the Edda Poetry Chapbook Competition for Women in 2002. She has published recently in LABOR: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas and Oklahoma Today. Her essay, “This Oklahoma We Call Home,” appears in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of Crosstimbers.