Brenda Iijima
![Black and white photograph of poet Brenda Iijima](https://cdn-test.poetryfoundation.org/cdn-cgi/image/w=10,h=10,q=50,blur=3/content/images/96756ae13aa9c4b110daad745dfd53b4b0604b1b.jpeg)
Brenda Iijima grew up in North Adams, Massachusetts, and studied visual arts at Skidmore College. After teaching in China for a year, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she teaches and edits for Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, a publisher of poetry. Iijima’s collections of poetry include Around Sea (2004), Animate, Inanimate Aims (2007), Subsistence Equipment (2008), Revv. You’ll—ution (2009), and If Not Metamorphic (2010).
In her work, Iijima addresses the subjects of science, gender, ecology, and history. Alan Davies, reviewing Around Sea, noted that in her poems, “meaning accrues by dint of repeated hint.” If Not Metamorphic is rich in the language and metaphorical implications of geology, and is often driven by sound associations. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the title poem, “composed entirely of questions, sifts and settles across its pages like sediment.”
Iijima is the editor of eco language reader (2010), a collection of essays by poets on matters of ecological concern.
In her work, Iijima addresses the subjects of science, gender, ecology, and history. Alan Davies, reviewing Around Sea, noted that in her poems, “meaning accrues by dint of repeated hint.” If Not Metamorphic is rich in the language and metaphorical implications of geology, and is often driven by sound associations. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the title poem, “composed entirely of questions, sifts and settles across its pages like sediment.”
Iijima is the editor of eco language reader (2010), a collection of essays by poets on matters of ecological concern.