Denise Newman is a multimedia poet, translator, and educator. She writes of her work: “Language is also a shared system and, because it is linked to consciousness, it is our primary habitat. In my writing, videos and collaborations, I am always looking for ways to catch the aliveness of words in dynamic play with the physical world, as unmediated by my will as possible. I feel my ultimate task as a writer and artist is to help keep language from ossifying, work that is so crucial for the collective imagination.”

Newman’s poetry collections are: Future People, The New Make Believe, Wild Goods, Human Forest, and The Redesignation of Paradise. She is also involved in video and social practice projects that explore incongruities between perception, language and reality, and for many years she has collaborated with composers providing lyrics for choral works and songs. She has received a Creative Work Fund grant, and for her translation work, two PEN awards and two NEA Fellowships. She teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California.

Newman lives and works in San Francisco.

denisenewman.net