Love and zombies

Juliana Gray, assistant professor of English and recent winner of Syracuse University's Stone Canoe Award for poetry, joked about the prize: “The stone canoe sculpture is very heavy. I think it's made of bronze, so it's maybe twenty, twenty-five pounds. I intend to work out with it in my office. Look for me with really toned arms this summer.”

Before the summer starts and she begins her exercise regimen with her heavy prize, Gray regaled the campus community with a reading of love poems at the Women’s Studies Roundtable on March 5.

Gray read from a variety of poems, including some that she had written and others written by female poets whom she admires. All of the poems dealt with the topic of love, but there were no “Roses are red, violets are blue” Valentine poems. The poems spanned time and many ideas of romance, beginning with Sappho, the famous Greek poet.

In her own poetry, Gray mostly meditated on the personas of other characters and their romantic lives. Her personas drew on mythology (Helen of Troy) and popular culture in poems such as "Nancy Drew, 45, Posts on Match.com." Gray did have a couple of poems that were more personal, though she says she leans away from that sort of poetry.

When asked about her history with poetry, Gray said, “I wrote my first poem probably in the first or second grade, and started taking it seriously as an undergraduate, when I took my first writing workshop.”

Originally Gray did not see herself as a poet, but instead fancied herself a fiction writer. It was when she noticed that people tended to prefer her poetry that she dedicated herself to the art.

As for advice for undergraduate poets out there, Gray wrote, “I would advise aspiring poets to take a class from me! I don't think it's possible to teach students how to be great poets, but I can at least save them a few years of figuring out some hard lessons for themselves. I'd also advise aspiring writers to read-- read everything, but especially poetry, if you're trying to write poetry.”

Gray is currently working on a manuscript entitled “Roleplay,” and has recently had two poems published in the anthology “Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds,” edited by Billy Collins. Gray has a zombie poem in the works, inspired by her honors course, All You Zombies, and would like to attest to the fact that she is the AU Zombie Expert.