Poet. Professor. Writing facilitator.
Kazimir Malevich, _Black Square_, 1915, oil on linen, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Hi!
Thank you for visiting my website! I am a writer, poet, and professor. I hold a PhD in English from Indiana University, an MFA in creative writing (poetry) from The New School in New York City, and a BA in English (with distinction) from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
I am an associate professor of the humanities with the Bard Sequence Program in Washington, DC. I teach and publish widely across literature, spirituality, and queer thought, and I was recently appointed a mentor professor for new Bard Early College faculty. My teaching has been highlighted in an article by Betsy Rosso here, and Krista Tippett's On Being has published my reflections on teaching here .
I am a prolific writer and poet, and my recent and forthcoming writing can be viewed here. My first book of poetry, The Canaanite Woman, was released by Wipf and Stock Publishers in 2022. My second book of poetry, The Gospel According to B., was released in July 2024.
My academic articles appear in top-tier scholarly journals, including Modernism/modernity, Criticism, Studies in the Novel, Modern Fiction Studies, and elsewhere. Recent book reviews appear in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature and Partial Answers: A Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas. My academic writing draws out queer threads across a vast range of literature, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
My poetry appears in a range of journals, including Tiferet, The Other Journal, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere. I was awarded the 2021 DIAJ Award in Poetry by Door is a Jar magazine, and my poem "Apple or Baby Jesus" was nominated for a Best of the Net Award for poetry in 2022. I am founding director of the Institute for Spiritual Poetry, which hosts writing workshops and publishes a journal, Soul Forte: A Journal for Spiritual Writing. I am regularly invited by Bard Early College Dean's Hour series , Centering Space in Lakewood, Ohio, and Center for Spiritual Deepening in Alexandra, Virginia, to facilitate workshops to write and talk about poetry, queer thought, and spirituality.
Please reach out to me here to say hi or learn more!
Glorious Recent reads
On the Calculation of Volume, Book 1, by Solvej Balle, transl. by Barbara J. Haveland
Trauma, then hope.
Centimeter by centimeter.
Animal Life, by Audor Ava Olafsdottir, transl. by Brian FitzGibbon
Are we people or angles of light?
The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, transl. by Torbjorn Stoverud & Michael Barnes
The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, transl. by Torbjorn Stoverud & Michael Barnes
Brother and sister. Aloneness together.
ChecK out my newest book
The Gospel According to B. | Poems
Out now from Unsolicited Press (2024). Please consider ordering the book here or from your favorite bookseller.
Jesus meets a handsome man from Sodom. What would a queer Jesus do? Read more here.
My first book
The Canaanite Woman | Poems
Please consider ordering my book, The Canaanite Woman | Poems, through Wipf and Stock Publishers, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, or your local bookseller. Thank you!
The Canaanite Woman in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark asks Jesus to heal her daughter's suffering from so-called demon possession, what today some readers might understand as a complicated distress or disorder. Matthew and Mark give the Canaanite Woman only a handful of verses before moving on to Jesus's next encounter. The present book pauses with her for considerably longer. The Canaanite Woman emerges as a prophet when we notice both her inborn and hard-won wisdom, her strength and resilience as she raises a child with complicated behaviors in a culture of conformity.
The Canaanite Woman is not an ancient visionary from an outdated story. She is your neighbor. Your business partner. She is the woman you pass in the grocery store aisle. Your daughter, wife, or friend. She might be a man, for men, too, are often primary caretakers of children with complicated behaviors and disorders. Maybe you are the Canaanite Woman. Or will be. The Canaanite Woman has much to teach us about the mystery of love. Let's follow her. She'll lead us to other quiet visionaries along the way, including ones we often pass by: the visionary within the marginalized; the visionary within ourselves.
New and forthcoming publications
College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies
My article, "Calm Modernism: Virginia Woolf, Kazimir Malevich, and Eternal Rest," is forthcoming in College Literature in 2025. Take a peek at my other academic articles here.
Untold Volumes: Feminist Theology Poetry
My poem "How Do You Get Rid of a God" appears in Untold Volumes: Feminist Theology Poetry, February 2024. Check out my other poetry publications here.
Modern Fiction Studies
My article "Queer Mrs. Ramsay, Or Virginia Woolf's Geomorphic Family" appears in Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 69, no. 4, Winter 2023. Read my other academic articles here.
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas
My review of Elizabeth Anderson's book Material Spirituality in Modernist Women's Writing appears in Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, vol. 22, no. 2, June 2024. Enjoy my book reviews here.
Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures
Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures
My academic article "Pheoby's Queer Quietness in Their Eyes Were Watching God" appears in Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures, vol. 75, no. 4, 2022. Check out my academic articles here.
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures
Two poems -- "Yeshua Sits Cross-Legged with His Classmates and Listens to Artemis's Parable of the Soccer Match" and "Memorial to the Canaanite Woman" -- appear in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 39, no. 2, Fall 2023. Check out my poems here.
Studies in the Novel
My article "Homosexual Calm: Pausing to Listen to Queer Shame in Frankenstein" appears in Studies in the Novel, Spring 2022. Find my other academic articles here.
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
My review of Emily Kopley's brilliant book Virginia Woolf and Poetry appears in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 41, no. 2, Fall 2022. Enjoy my other book reviews here.
Creative Commitments: A Publication from Lehigh University
Creative Commitments: A Publication from Lehigh University
Two poems -- "Three Wise Men" and "I Didn't Do Gay Thirties Right" -- appear in Creative Commitments, issue 2, Summer 2022, an occasional publication from Lehigh University’s Global Citizenship Center for Pedagogies of Self, Other and World Well-being. Enjoy my other poems here.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Creative Commitments: A Publication from Lehigh University
My two poems "One of the Wise Men Explains Why He Became an Astronomer" and "Yeshua Rereads the Iliad's Final Line. It Speaks to Something Deep Inside Him" appear in Tomorrow and Tomorrow,, issue 3, 2022. Enjoy more of my poems here.
Our Church Too
My essay "Belief in Belonging: A Reflection on Going to Church" appears as a three-part series in Summer 2022 in Our Church Too. Click for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Image by Nat Iwata. Enjoy more of my essays here,
The Well
My poem "Tribute to Grey" appears in Mindful Poetry Moments, an anthology of poetry published by The Well in Summer 2022. Enjoy more of my poems here.
Writing Awards and Honors
Featured Poet in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Featured Poet in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Featured Poet in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Poetry editor Chloe Martinez selected two of my poems to feature in the issue's "In a Different Voice" section. Martinez writes, “In Bagocius’s poems . . . we see Yeshua’s inexorable destiny re-imagined as a soccer ball floating ‘big and soft’ toward him, while the anonymous Canaanite woman gets an ‘invisible structure,’ a place for us to memorialize her as a figure of persistent love and faith. I appreciate the gentleness with which these poems intertwine modern experiences with biblical literature, discovering along the way moments of surprise, agency, and wonder" (qtd. in Raucher and Ott, 39.2, 2). Read the poems -- and others -- here.
Best of the Net Nominee
Featured Poet in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Featured Poet in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
My poem "Apple or Baby Jesus" was nominated for a 2022 Best of the Net award for poetry by Braided Way: Faces and Voices of Spiritual Practice, edited by Laura Grace Weldon. Read the nomination announcement here.
2021 DIAJ Award Winner
My poem "Lazy Eye" was awarded the 2021 DIAJ Award by Door is a Jar Magazine for "capturing a unique balance of introspection and acceptance that speak so loudly to what it means to be human," writes journal editor Maxwell Bauman. "Lazy Eye" appears in Issue 20, Fall 2021.
Spotlight on my teaching
Writing. Going inward to share outward.
Check out this article by Betsy Rosso that shines on a light on my writing-intensive college courses, for which high school students earn Bard College credit.
MY Workshops to write & Talk. Join us!
A Person or an Angle of Light: Encountering Icelandic Literature.
Saturday, October 28, 2023
10:00 to 11:00 AM, ET
Zoom.
Register here.
Drawing from Icelandic writer Audor Ava Olafsdottir’s recent novel Animal Life, we will read a little, write a little, and share out whatever you feel called to. There is no pre-reading required, since this session is less about plot comprehension and more about letting Olafsdottir’s lines about light and darkness, mountains and mud, self and spirit spur our imaginations and our writing. The session is writing intensive, so come with a pen and paper. By the end expect to be as uncertain as Olafsdottir when you look up and see human beings: “is it a person or an angle of light?”
Please register here through Centering Space, a place to renew, refresh, and refocus.
Juliet is the Sun:
On Metaphor and Metamorphosis.
A workshop to write and talk about everyday and emergent ways of being in this new year.
Facilitated by author, professor, and coach Lina Rodriguez.
Sunday, January 29th, 2023
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Please contact me for the zoom link!
Dada Delights:
A workshop to write, talk, and celebrate whimsy and wonder with Dada, an early 20th century art movement.
Facilitated by writer and poet Tony Bates.
Sunday, December 18th, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM.
Zoom.
Please contact me for the zoom link!
The Poetry of Forced Migration and Refugee Activism. Submitted for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 2023.
Join us to write and talk with author Becky Thompson and her newest book of poems, To Speak in Salt.
Please consider supporting poets' work and purchasing Becky's book here or at your favorite bookseller. However, no pre-reading or book purchase is required to enjoy and gain from the session. Come!
Sunday, November 20th, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
Humans are gonna human.
Love is gonna love.
Let others be shocked.
A workshop to write and talk.
Facilitated by poet-playwright and dramatic theorist Irene Loy.
Sunday, October 23rd, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
I'm Pissed. Now What?
A workshop to write and talk about anger and change.
Join us for this second and final session in our Anger series. Let's write, roar, and renew together!
Facilitated by spiritual director and poet Ruah Bull.
Sunday, September 18th, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
Anger, the Sacred Smash:
A writing workshop where anger meets wisdom and the walls start tumbling down.
Let anger lead you to its secrets about healing and holiness.
Facilitated by spiritual director and poet Ruah Bull.
Sunday, August 14th, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
Nonsense: A workshop to write, talk, and laugh all the way to absurd ideas and new delights.
Find freedom. Treat yourself to the joy and release of writing and talking Nonsense.
Facilitated by poet Tony Bates.
Sunday, July 24, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET.
Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
A Workshop to Write, Talk, and Taste Life's Darks and Sparkles
We'll use each other's poems (either ones you find or ones you write) to enjoy life's rich darks, light and fluffy sweetness, and our own new writing we bake up during the session. If you'd like, please share your chosen poem on the doc beforehand.
*Thank you to Ginny Douglas for the theme and language of cupcakes and poetry to "chew on."
Sunday, May 29th
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET
Zoom
Contact me for the zoom link!
Mother's Day is just around the corner. In tribute to materning -- in the most expansive sense of the term -- and to all things majestic, maddening, and mysterious that stem therefrom, come to this workshop to write and talk about what you know in your heart to be true, if not popular or understood. Poetry by Kim Parko (from whom "despite our reservations, we do have kids" comes), Diotimus's reflections on Artemis, and Kahlil Gibran's thoughts on parenting will spur our writing, imagination, and conversation. Come!
Mother's Day Sunday, May 8th, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET, Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
Resurrection is an ancient yet modern concept and experience, from Phoenix's rising from the ashes to one's own hard-won decision to rise from devastation and step once more into the unkempt but fragrant garden of life. Join us to write, talk, and reimagine resurrection with poetry from around the world, across time, and in your own soul. Come!
Sunday, April 17, 2022.
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET, Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
In her new book Curating Bracha: An Exhibition in Words and Light, Angelina Rodriguez writes the life of feminist and spiritual painter Bracha Ettinger as an exhibit of paintings. What splashes of color, lines of light, and curious shapes deliver you and imagined viewers "to the light available" in your every breath and thought? Join us for this two-session series to write, talk, and imagine your life as a series of paintings that heals both artist and viewer. Gather for this writing excursion into the gallery of the soul and write those streaks of light: your life.
Two Sundays, March 30 and April 3, 2022
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, ET, Zoom.
Contact me for the zoom link!
I am editor-in-chief of Soul Forte: A Journal for Spiritual Writing, which is a member of the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP).
Hello.
Poet. I write, read, + talk poetry. To me it's the language that makes -- and unmakes -- sense.
Professor. I teach writing, reading, + poetry for a living.
Writing Facilitator. I create space for people to write their way to their own discoveries, including that they are poets and writers.