Eszter Takacs

Eszter earned a BA in English from Loyola Marymount University, and an MFA in poetry at the University of Arkansas, where she also completed a Fulbright teaching fellowship after graduating. She is currently in the process of completing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Arts at the University of Denver, where she has examined poetics of the body, poetics of resistance and poetics of popular culture through her studies and course designs. Her dissertation in progress serves to examine the space occupied by American icon Britney Spears as both product and victim of capitalism. Through poetry, Eszter is working to codify the textual artifacts of Britney’s captivity narrative into a revision history where the heroine prevails.

Originally from Hungary, Eszter has also endeavored to translate poetry by Lajos Kassák and Dezső Kosztolányi and hopes to continue to this work in the future.

Eszter has taught both creative and academic writing in addition to contemporary literature at the University of Arkansas, University of Denver, Red Rocks Community College and Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She has also worked in supportive housing at The Delores Project in Denver, where she was able to re-evaluate what it means to be both human and professional, and where she facilitated writing workshops, talent shows and interactive community art projects. She is new IAA this year and looks forward to teaching 11th and 12th grade writing and literature courses.