Donora Hillard is an American educator and author. She was first made notable in the fields of institutional critique and trauma studies, specifically for her first full-length collection of poetry published when she was 27 years old. Her projects have appeared on CNN, WBEZ Chicago, and MSNBC, owing to her inclusion in a Norton Anthology of hint fiction. She has published several works of hybrid text, poetry, and theory: Parapherna, Exhibition, Theology of the Body, Covenant, and The Aphasia Poems. In 2015, her play The Plagiarist was produced in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts' The Big Read initiative. In 2016, Cobalt Press published her most recent full-length poetry book, Jeff Bridges.
Early life
Hillard was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. "Home for me," Hillard has said of the rural setting of her upbringing, "is being lost in the woods with people telling stories about something terrible all around you." Some of her earliest works of poetry were recognized locally. She later matriculated at King's College, where she would become President of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, and attain a membership to the Aquinas Society, the King's College honor society.
Academic career
After completing her BA in English from King's College in just under three years, Hillard went on to pursue an MA in creative writing from Rutgers University. She would later finish that degree and also receive her MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in 2008. It was during her tenure as an English instructor at a private Roman Catholic high school near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that Hillard cultivated the experiences that would inform Theology of the Body, her first full-length poetry collection. In 2014, while teaching composition and literature at Lawrence Technological University, Hillard's work, The Aphasia Poems, was published by S▲L. After moving to Northeast Ohio, Hillard completed the requirements for her PhD in English from Wayne State University.
Selected works
Theology of the Body is a feminist response, through the fragmentation of form and memory, to the teachings of Pope John Paul II, also published under the same name. This work of hybrid text would lead one staff reviewer at Kill Author to claim, "I think Donora Hillard has visionary powers." In summarizing her own belief structure, Hillard has said that it "hinges upon the Gospel of Thomas and the phrase 'Talitha cumi,' which is Aramaic for 'Girl, get up.'"
The Aphasia Poems is a collection of poems adapted with permission from Hillard's clients with linguistic disabilities, to whom she was a disability advocate and mentor in Wayne County, Michigan. According to one reviewer, while some writers might be inclined to "speak about or for these individuals, Hillard allows them to speak for themselves."
Jeff Bridges was published in April 2016 and critically acclaimed.
Books and Chapbooks of Poetry
Parapherna
Exhibition
Theology of the Body
Covenant
The Aphasia Poems
Jeff Bridges
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: An Election Cycle
