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Melissa Kwasny comes from the great tradition of poets writing in dialogue with the natural world, from the direct-address influence of Sappho, to H.D.'s treatment of nature as a character. Her first book of poems, The Archival Birds, was published in 2000 by Bear Star Press, and her latest book, Thistle (2006, Lost Horse Press), won the 2005 Idaho Prize for poetry. Kwasny is also the author of two novels, Trees Call for What They Need (Spinsters Ink, 1993) and Modern Daughters of the Outlaw West, (Spinsters Ink, 1990), and editor of Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 (Wesleyan University Press, 2004). Her latest book of poems, Reading Novalis in Montana, is due out soon from Milkweed Editions.

Kwasny was born in Indiana and earned an MFA from the University of Montana, where she studied with Patricia Goedicke, Mark Levine, and Greg Pape. She spent ten years in San Francisco teaching in the California Poets in the Schools Program, and now lives outside Jefferson City, Montana.

Kwasny's work has appeared in The Bellingham Review, Crab Orchard Review, Cutbank, Columbia, Poetry Northwest, Seneca Review, Ploughshares, Three Penny Review, and Willow Springs among many other journals. We met with her over lunch in Missoula, Montana.