Overview
Tanner Crunelle is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University. He studies poetic form—its political affordances and ethical engagements—in transtemporal frames, with a particular focus 21st- and 20th- century U.S. American poetry. Investments in continental literary and cultural theory, feminist praxis, and U.S. Southern studies also reflect in his teaching, research, and life as a poet.
Having received his MFA in Poetry from College of Charleston (CofC) in 2024, his public-facing scholarship can be found in CofC’s Discovering Our Past project, and his poetry in Word For/Word and Sugar House Review literary magazines. In addition to being awarded CofC’s top prize for graduate student research and creative work in 2024, he was also awarded Cornell's 2025 Robert Chasen Poetry Prize.
Research Focus
- Poetry & poetics
- Theory
- 20th- and 21st- century
- Feminist studies
- Southern (U.S.) studies