She is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she also directs the Creative Writing Program. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Domestic Work, Bellocq’s Ophelia, Native Guard, and Thrall. She is also the author of a book of creative nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.