ISU Hosts Alexandra Teague as Dolsen Visiting Writer on 9/24/25

Professor and acclaimed writer Alexandra Teague visited with ISU September 24, 2025 as the annual Dolsen Visiting Writer. During her visit, Teague held a public poetry reading and craft class for ISU students.

Idaho State University's Department of English and Philosophy was pleased to host professor and acclaimed writer Alexandra Teague as the annual Dolsen Visiting Writer on September 24, 2025. During her visit, Teague held a public poetry reading and a creative writing craft class open to all ISU students.

At the College Market, Teague read from her most recent poetry collection, [ominous music intensifying], followed by a Q&A session. The reading was free and open to the public. Earlier that day at noon, Teague led a creative writing craft class for ISU students in Liberal Arts 151. 

In [ominous music intensifying], her fourth poetry collection, Teague examined the tension between patriotic mythologies of American culture and its often-dangerous reality. “It was always mixed up,” reads the opening poem, “what was fantasy and real/and beautiful.” The poems offer urgent social critique, confronting issues such as gun violence and climate change. In a surreal turn, melding myth with contemporary crisis, the “Rough Beast” of Yeats’ apocalyptic poem “The Second Coming” slouches through the collection, appearing in art class, outer space, and other unexpected settings. Library Journal commended Teague’s work as “engaged, propulsive poetry for anyone concerned about U.S. culture today,” and the book was selected by the New York Times poetry editor as a recommended title. 

Teague is also the author of Spinning Tea Cups: A Mythical American Memoir (Oregon State University Press, 2023), three additional books of poetry, and a novel. She co-edited the anthology Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. A former recipient of fellowships from Civitella Ranieri and the NEA, and a 2026 Idaho Commission on the Arts Literature Fellow, she is a professor of creative writing and chair of English at the University of Idaho.

Teague’s visit was part of the Dolsen Visiting Writer Series, in which the Department of English and Philosophy annually hosts a visiting creative writer for a public reading and educational activities. The series is supported by an endowment established by Tom Neel, an ISU alumnus who earned his B.A. in English with minors in French and Philosophy in 1987. Neel created the Dolsen Visiting Writer Event Endowment to honor Professor Arthur Dolsen—whose mentorship and friendship he deeply valued—and his late wife, Marijana, and their daughter, Daria. Dolsen is Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literatures at Idaho State University, where he taught courses in Latin, Russian, and French.