Poetry in the Woods
Faculty
Learn more about the faculty below.
PITW Faculty 2026.
Elizabeth Hoover
Elizabeth Hoover is a poet, essayist, and critic. Her first collection of poetry, the archive is all in present tense, received the 2021 Barrow Street Book Prize and her creative nonfiction has appeared in Southeast Review, North American Review, and StoryQuarterly. She is an Assistant Professor at Webster University in Saint Louis.
Kristin Emanuel
Kristin Emanuel is a PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Her debut poetry collection, Birdwatching in the 4th Dimension, was selected by Shann Ray as the winner of the 2025 Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize. Her poems have appeared in Ecotone, Boston Review, and Poetry Northwest.
Jason Vasser-Elong
Jason Vasser-Elong, the author of Shrimp (2Leaf Press, 2018), a collection of poetry that
examines identity in a post-colonial context. His newest collection Lavendar is forthcoming this
year. He holds a degree in anthropology, a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing with an emphasis
in poetry and is a doctor of education.
Justin Hamm
Justin Hamm is the current Missouri Poet Laureate (2025-2027). He is the author of five books of poetry—O Death, Drinking Guinness With the Dead: Poems 2007–2021, The Inheritance, American Ephemeral, and Lessons in Ruin—as well as the creator of Poet Baseball Cards and founding editor of the museum of americana.
Andrea Scarpino
Andrea Scarpino has published the poetry collections Once Upon Wing Lake, What the Willow Said as it Fell, and Once, Then, and the co-edited anthology Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice. She received a PhD in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and an MFA from The Ohio State University. She teaches at Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School.
Amie Whittemore
Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Nest of Matches (Autumn House Press), and the chapbook Hesitation Waltz (Midwest Writing Center). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University.
PITW Program Coordinator.
Travis Mossotti
Travis Mossotti is the author of five full-length collections. Recent-ish highlights: Racecar Jesus, won the Christopher Smart-Joan Alice Poetry Prize and was highly commended for the Forward Prize (Black Spring Press Group UK, 2023) and Apocryphal Genesis, won the Alma Book Award and the 2025 North American Poetry Book Award (Saturnalia Books, 2024). He won the 2023 Wales Poetry Award, and he currently serves as a Biodiversity Fellow for the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University. He lives and works in St. Louis.
PITW Program Administrators.
Erin Quick
Erin Quick has served at Executive Director at Saint Louis Poetry Center since 2016 and has served as a Program Administrator for Poetry in the Woods since 2023.
Lindsay Mossotti
Lindsay Mossotti is Contract and Grant Administrator in the Biology Department at Washington University and a graduate of Webster University with a degree in Creative Writing (poetry).
Lydia Golitz
Lydia Golitz joined Program Coordinator for St. Louis Poetry Center in 2026 as well as graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis.
PITW Past & Present Faculty.
Past and Present Faculty and Faculty Observers include: Kerry James Evans, Eduardo Corral, Andrea Scarpino, James Crews, Naomi Shihab Nye, Adam Vines, Justin Hamm, James Kimbrell, Traci Brimhall, Devin Johnston, Rita Chapman, Elizabeth Hoover, Kristin Emanuel, Shane Seely, Travis Mossotti, Amie Whittemore, Jason Vasser-Elong, and Clayton Adam Clark. Faculty roster rotates each year, and includes a wide array of local and visiting poets.