Faculty/Staff
Arts and Humanities

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Professor Harper is a poet and teaches Creative Writing at Defiance College. Below is some of her work. Her poems are influenced by Chinese and Japanese forms, as well as the philosophical wanderings of Wallace Stevens.

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Before the Solstice: December
peroxide for sheets
to bury our dead in white
snow melts in the spring

Before the Equinox: March
we aim at sainthood
sleep on beds of river rock
dream falling water

Before the Solstice: June
this killing sunburn
this boiling radiator
this wheat growing fat

Before the Equinox: September
full moon holds the loss
I look up, imagine you
hugging your mountain

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Please Use Trails Only
Not to worry, anything can happen in a dream
and be fine.
Like the one where I put a metal tray in the microwave
and no sparks flew.

Like the one where you drove into Lake Erie
and we floated.
Like the one where the crop circle appeared on your head
and photographers came.

Like the one where we rode our horses into a thermos
and that eighteen ounce stainless steel tube expanded
to the size and rock and sky of the whole southwest
and the horses never shied of rattlesnakes as we rode
to the rim of the Grand Canyon and drank coffee there
still on horseback while also sitting in the kitchen
and the thermos had not tipped over, no coffee spilled
and we were fine.

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Besides writing poetry, women's science fiction is one of the areas that Professor Harper studies and writes about, and most of her publications are in this field of study. Writers like Connie Willis and James Tiptree, Jr., (Alice B. Sheldon) are very interesting to her, but so are William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Salman Rushdie. Her favorite poets are Rita Dove, Louise Glűck, and Wallace Stevens. There are so many wonderful writers in the world and never enough time to read all of their works.