Since all poetry is, essentially, a form of rebellion-whether it rebels against the authority of institutions or societal repression or just against death and the passage of time-poets may feel conflicted about working in academia, where institutional structures threaten to inhibit honest writing. In 2003 she came to the University of Utah where she is a full professor.

From there she decided to get an MFA, and, after her second book was published, she applied for a teaching position at the University of Wyoming. In her words, she “ended up with a Fulbright” and moved to Korea. While working on her doctorate in medieval studies she decided to take a break to just write poetry. But Rekdal didn’t start out wanting to be a poet-her first dream (besides to be Mae West) was to be a reporter or an editor for Harper’s Magazine. She is admirably capable at all the stuff she does.” Rekdal is so capable, disciplined, and accomplished that she is currently the director of the creative writing program at the University of Utah, which boasts one of the most prestigious creative writing Ph.D. She learned how to do remodeling work so that she could get her cabin in the shape she wanted it. “She decided she wanted to learn to play Spanish guitar, and she’s been taking lessons for a year now. “She decided to start running a couple of years ago, and she has been diligent ever since,” Johnson says. Her friend and fellow poet, Kimberly Johnson, says she admires the way Rekdal sets goals and then follows through on them. Of course, she points out, when she is teaching she isn’t always able “to be so prolific,” but judging by her long list of publications, readings, presentations, and community outreach, whether on campus or abroad she remains a tireless writer, thinker, teacher, and activist. While doing a residency in Umbria, Italy, last year, she said she would eat a little, write all day, go for a run, eat dinner, have some wine and then write again all evening-sometimes until 2 in the morning. Rekdal seems endowed with endless creative energy.

Her poetry and essays engage the big topics of race, sexism, and environmentalism, but they also dig deep into the micro dynamics of identity-public and private-and how representation and interpretation can imprison or liberate individuals, literature, the natural world, and our communities. Besides an upcoming collection of poetry in which she reimagines Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Rekdal has published five collections of poetry and three books of non-fiction. Paisley Rekdal was recently named the Utah Poet Laureate, a five-year post, and it is obvious that she deserves the title.

Intimate by Paisley Rekdal