About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Hazen is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in EPOCH, Shenandoah, Best American Poetry, Southwest Review, The Threepenny Review, The Normal School, and other journals. She taught secondary school English for twenty years at independent schools in Baltimore before leaving her role as an educator to work with the team at The Ivy Bookshop and Bird in Hand on book curation and events.
Chaos… more
Chaos Theories - Poetry Collection 2016
"Science in these poems is both information and consolation, a way of untangling chaos, of seeing more clearly and cleanly. Hazen is a poet who understands that we are all searching in various ways to make order of our lives and loves, and who crafts poems that can aid us in that search. This is an astonishing debut collection from a poet simultaneously tenderhearted and wise, who brings hard-won and beautifully wrought insights to every page."
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Chaos Theories
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Grubb Road Book FestivalWith Andrew Gifford, publish Santa Fe Writers Project, 2016
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Hampdenfest 2016Hampdenfest 2016 included poetry readings for the first time.
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Alan Squire Publish Spring 2016 Launch PartyMay 2016 with publisher Rose Solari at the Spring Launch party
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Back coverChaos Theories back cover
Girls Like Us - Poetry Collection 2020
My second a poetry collection, Girls Like Us, was published in early 2020. I was able to have the launch party for the book just before everything shut down due to Covid-19. Many of the poems in the collection focus on female identity and the contradictory personas women are expected to embody. The women in these poems both fear and provoke the male gaze, reconciling themselves to the violence that such attentions may bring, and they are in conflict with themselves about their own desires and self-destructive tendencies. Many of the poems also explore themes related to addiction and recovery.
Pair Shaped Collaboration
For my collaboration, completed in 2015, I was paired with west coast visual artist, Brooks Dierdorff. The resulting project yields four poems and four works of art including photographs, a sculpture, and a painting. Inevitably my obsessions with visibility and invisibility, particularly relating to female identity, emerged as I meditated on and responded to Brooks’ work.
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PairShaped1.jpgDetail from collaboration with Brooks Dierdorff for Pair Shaped
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PairShaped2.jpgPhoto by Brooks Dierdorff that inspired the poem "Hide and Seek"
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PairShaped3.jpgPhoto of Brooks Dierdorff's piece that inspired poem "Lucky Girl"
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PairShaped4.jpgFinal image by Brooks Dierdorff in Pair Shaped Series 8 - inspired the poem "Alignment"
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Alignment Poem ExcerptDetail from "Alignment"