Born and raised in Chillicothe , Ohio , Spahr received her BA from Bard College and her PhD from the University at Buffalo , The State University of New York in English . She has taught at Siena College ( 1996 – 7 ) , the University of Hawaii at Manoa ( 1997 – 2003 ) , and Mills College ( 2003 – ) . With Jena Osman , she edited the arts journal '' Chain '' from 1993 to 2003 . In 2012 , Spahr co-edited '' A Megaphone : Some Enactments , Some Numbers , and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism '' with Mills colleague and fellow-poet Stephanie Young . Spahr 's participation in the 2011 Occupy Movement is chronicled in her 2015 book '' That Winter The Wolf Came '' . According to Spahr , she spent time in the encampments and participated in protests , although she and her son " never spent the night . " Her work examines social issues , including the repercussions of the BP oil spill , the global impact of 9/11 , capitalism , and climate change . She uses poetry as a mechanism to provide cultural recognition and representation to social movements and political actions
BP oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Juliana Spahr