Annie Wen­strup is a Dena’ina poet. Her work recent­ly appeared in About Place, Diode, Ecotone, The New England Review, Poetry, and Ran Off with the Star Bassoon and is forth­com­ing in Poets & Writers, and The Kenyon Review. Her poetry col­lec­tion, The Museum of Unnat­ur­al His­to­ries, is forth­com­ing from Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty Press (March 2025). You can read more about Annie and her work at www.akwenstrup.com 

What do you write?

Poems and essays. Lately I’ve been writing essays about Alaska. I’m orig­i­nal­ly from Anchor­age but I’ve spent the last 17 years in Fair­banks. I have a lot of ques­tions about what it means to live here. What would a rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ship with the more-than-human-world look like here? What are my respon­si­bil­i­ties to the com­mu­ni­ties I belong to? 

My poetry uses form—nonce and received—to explore how expe­ri­ences of embod­i­ment. The ques­tions I bring to poetry are more neb­u­lous than what I bring to prose. What shape would this expe­ri­ence make on the page? What kind of con­so­nance or pat­tern­ing echoes this emo­tion­al tenor? 

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

My thesis began as a col­lec­tion of ekphras­tic poems. I have a hard time sitting down to an empty page and believ­ing that I can write a first draft of a poem. It’s a hor­ri­bly uncom­fort­able expe­ri­ence. But engag­ing with art removes that barrier, because the ekphras­tic poem con­tin­ues a con­ver­sa­tion that another artist has already begun. So, it feels a little less like approach­ing a blank page. Recent­ly I’ve been car­ry­ing images by the artists Sarah Whalen Lunn, Flo­rence Napaaq Male­wotkuk, and Susie Bevins close to my heart while I work. 

Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA?

I was ini­tial­ly attract­ed to Stonecoast because of its excel­lent poetry faculty and the WISE program. But what decided it for me was a con­ver­sa­tion I had with Justin about the incom­ing poetry cohort. He was so excited about the incom­ing class. He spoke about his hopes for how each poet’s strengths would com­ple­ment the cohort as whole. I knew I wanted to be in an envi­ron­ment that valued com­mu­ni­ty over competition. 

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

During the summer 2021 res­i­den­cy, Cate Marvin taught “Trauma vs. Trans­gres­sion” which exam­ined the rela­tion­ship between con­fes­sion­al poetry and white suprema­cy culture. I had one true “aha” moment in that class that clar­i­fied what I wanted to explore in my man­u­script. The course also pro­vid­ed me with insight into how white suprema­cy culture shapes my life. 

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

I’m excited about my role as Alumni and Donor Rela­tions Coor­di­na­tor at Indige­nous Nations Poets. We’re a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides men­tor­ship to emerg­ing Native writers. I was an In-Na-Po Fellow during my final semes­ter at Stonecoast and the Fel­low­ship helped with the post-grad­u­a­tion tran­si­tion. My goal is to ensure that other emerg­ing Indige­nous Poets have access to lit­er­ary spaces that support tribal, cul­tur­al, and lin­guis­tic sovereignty. 

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone.