Melissa Kwasny is the author of six books of poetry, including Where Outside the Body is the Soul Today (University of Washington Press, Pacific Northwest Poetry Series); Pictograph; The Nine Senses; and Reading Novalis in Montana (all from Milkweed Editions), as well as a collection of essays Earth Recitals: Essays on Image and Vision (Lynx House Press). She is also the editor of two anthologies: Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 (Wesleyan University Press) and, with M.L. Smoker, I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poets in Defense of Global Human Rights (Lost Horse Press). She was named Montana Poet Laureate 2019-2021, a position she shared with her friend M.L. Smoker.