Bio


Sara Michas-Martin is a poet and nonfiction writer who draws inspiration from science and the natural world. Specific teaching interests include contemporary American poetry, environmental humanities, science communication and hybrid forms.

Her book, Gray Matter, winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize and nominated for the Colorado Book Award, is a creative investigation of the relationship between biology, the brain and one’s conscious understanding of a self. Current projects include a nonfiction manuscript (Black Boxes) that draws on medical, cultural and natural history to consider how the logic of the maternal body corresponds, or is in tension with, current ecological and social systems. Fire Season, a poetry manuscript, takes on deep ecology and the ethics of care in a moment of environmental precarity.

Sara holds a BFA in visual art from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona. Her work has been supported by a Wallace Stegner fellowship, grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Arts, Marble House Project, and the Bread Loaf and Community of Writers' conferences.

She received notable essay mentions in the 2023 Best American Nonfiction Essays and the 2023 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. Recent poems and essays have been published in the American Poetry Review, The Believer, Crazyhorse, The Glacier, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the New England Review, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, Terrain.org and elsewhere. She lives in the mountains with her family east of Monterey Bay.

Academic Appointments


  • Lecturer, Creative Writing

2023-24 Courses


All Publications


  • Black Boxes New England Review Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 43 (1): 10-25

    View details for DOI 10.1353/ner.2022.0002

  • 5 Poems The Glacier Michas-Martin, S. 2024
  • Wake Up or Get Out American Poetry Review Michas-Martin, S. 2023; 52 (5): Page34-34
  • A Meeting American Poetry Review Michas-Martin, S. 2023; 52 (5): p34-34
  • Transfigured in the Underground. JAMA Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 327 (14): 1405

    View details for DOI 10.1001/jama.2022.0863

    View details for PubMedID 35412562

  • Possible Poetry Northwest Michas-Martin, S. 2022; Published on January 31, 2022
  • Black Boxes NEW ENGLAND REVIEW-MIDDLEBURY SERIES Michas-Martin, S. 2022; 43 (1): 10-25
  • Visibly Pregnant KENYON REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 43 (4): 73
  • 2020 AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27
  • Blue Hours AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27
  • Bubble AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27
  • Nest AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27
  • He Says Cool Dress AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 50 (3): 27
  • Is it Real CRAZYHORSE Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 99 (SPRING): 74
  • Thieves & Magicians CRAZYHORSE Michas-Martin, S. 2021; 99 (SPRING): 74
  • First October, Aspens AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18
  • With Toddler AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18
  • Middle Life AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW Michas-Martin, S. 2019; 48 (2): 18
  • Also Born KENYON REVIEW ONLINE Michas-Martin, S. 2018; MAY/JUNE