Saretta Morgan is the author of Alt-Nature (Coffee House Press, 2024), and the chapbooks Feeling Upon Arrival (Ugly Duckling, 2018), and room for a counter interior (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2017).
Her work engages ecologies and forms of connectivity that develop alongside processes of U.S. militarization. Over the past decade she has participated in veteran-led organizing with Veterans for Peace (NYC) and About Face: Veterans Against the War, as well as the humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths Phoenix, which provides direct support to address the death and suffering of migrants in the Sonoran Desert. Additionally, she has been fortunate to participate in and learn from Indigenous-led water protection and food sovereignty work, Black-led community healing initiatives, and trans-led support for detained migrants. She believes in a Free Palestine as part of the broader inevitability of LAND BACK for Indigenous peoples across the earth.
From 2018-2023 she lived between the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, where she wrote her first full-length poetry collection, Alt-Nature, which received the Southwest Book Award.
She has designed interactive language-based programs for the Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Dia Beacon, and MoCA Tucson, among others. Her literary work has received support from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Arizona State University’s Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and elsewhere.
Born in Appalachia and raised on military installations, she currently lives on Mvskoke lands in Atlanta, GA where she trains in capoeira and wild bird rehabilitation.
BOOKS
Alt-Nature (Coffee House Press, 2024)
“Alt-Nature feels like a search party for the haunted, the story of a collective body, a nomenclature of ache, a watery prism of queer love and kinship for the irreducibility of belonging…” - Raquel Gutiérrez
Feeling Upon Arrival (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), chapbook
“In this text, the language of theory takes on the character
of a metaphysics.” - Douglas Kearney
room for a counter interior (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2017), chapbook
“If I sound a little abstract or obtuse talking about Room for a Counter Interior, it’s only because I don’t think I can really enter its pages with anything other than an aspiration to re-learn.” - John Rufo
SOME PUBLICATIONS
I use a values-centered approach to facilitating seminars, workshops and independent studies across a variety of demographics, from high school groups to anti-war veterans to undergraduate and graduate classes. While drawing attention to how language emerges through the practice of living intentionally in alignment with personal values and intuition, I bring curiosity to the ways imagination and personal landscapes (historic, ecological, geographic, social, emotional ...) intersect to form unique poetics in language and otherwise. Additionally, I have over a decade of experience in publishing and editing, as well as curating and hosting literary events and public programs across the country.
For editorial support or writing projects, click the link below. For speaking inquiries, please contact Leslie Shipman: Leslie@theshipmanagency.com.
WORK WITH ME
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“Saretta and Bekezela's workshop reminded me that we can't care for one another without caring for ourselves, and I can't believe Black Lives Matter if I don't believe my own life does."
Lauren Russel
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“Saretta is a clarifying, supportive force in the editing process. She offered indispensable grounding during the final stage of manuscript preparation."
Maxe Crandall
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“Saretta created a safe space for everyone to share and learn from each other.”
Ariana Benson