Martha Serpas

Poet Martha Serpas was born in Galliano, Louisiana. She earned a BA from Louisiana State University, an MA in English and creative writing from New York University, an MDiv from Yale Divinity School, and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. She is the author of the poetry collections Côte Blanche (2002) and The Dirty Side of the Storm (2006). Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Uncommon Place: An Anthology of Contemporary Louisiana Poets (1998) and American Religious Poems: An Anthology (2006).

In The Dirty Side of the Storm, Serpas poetically maps the Louisiana bayou, its inhabitants, and the storms they face and their destructive impact on the landscape. The book, Ginny Kaczmarek commented in a review for Rattle, is partially “a lament for a part of the world that is in danger.” Serpas “reminds us of the interconnectedness of land, people, and spirit, instigating the reader to become part of the solution.”

Serpas has worked as a trauma chaplain at Tampa General Hospital and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. She was poet-in-residence at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and has taught at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, at the University of Tampa, and in the University of Houston’s creative writing program.