Tanner Menard
PhD candidate · poet · of Louisiana Creole and Indigenous heritage.
Tanner Menard is a poet and scholar of Louisiana Creole, Indigenous, and Acadian heritage.
He is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where his dissertation Numalia: Visionary Poetics as Relational Ceremony develops a framework for reading the formal traces that visionary encounter leaves in poetic syntax. The work draws on Henry Corbin, analytic idealism, and Indigenous relational methodologies, with primary readings of CAConrad, Ariana Reines, Sherwin Bitsui, and Hoa Nguyen.
His book The Poet appeared from Post Asemic Press in 2024; Moniker is forthcoming from Between the Highways Press. As a poet-composer he has released six albums on Full Spectrum Records since 2016. He has taught poetry workshops at Toronto Metropolitan University, Woodland Patterns, A Studio in the Woods, the Emerging Diné Writers Institute, and the Desert Nights Rising Stars Literary Festival, and read at Flux Festival Montreal, the New Orleans Poetry Festival, and the Witter Bynner Indigenous Poetry Series.
Numalia: Visionary Poetics as Relational Ceremony
A hybrid critical-creative dissertation developing the term numalia — from numinous and qualia — to read the formal traces visionary encounter leaves in poetic syntax. The framework draws on Henry Corbin's mundus imaginalis, analytic idealism, and Indigenous relational methodologies, with primary readings of CAConrad, Ariana Reines, Sherwin Bitsui, and Hoa Nguyen. Funded by a Dissertation Completion Fellowship, the Maurice DuQuesnay Research and Creative Writing Award, and the Flora Levy Humanities Grant for archival research at Rice University's Archives of the Impossible.
- The Poet · Post Asemic Press · 2024
- Moniker · Between the Highways Press · forthcoming
- wanna live in the world w/ a whole face · Full Spectrum Records · 2016
- The Poet · Full Spectrum Records · 2024
- You Had Not Changed but Your Cameras Were No Longer Identical · Full Spectrum · 2022
- San Francisco: An Audiophony in Four Movements · Full Spectrum · 2019
- Deepest Indigo · Full Spectrum · 2016
- Fuller discography from 2008 forward available on request.
- Poetry Editor · Rougarou Magazine
- Poetry Editor · Thin Air Magazine · 2021–22
- Guest Editor · ANOMALOUS · 2019
- Numalia: Towards a Hermeneutics of Visionary Encounter · LSU 8th International Comparative Literature Conference · 2026
- Numalia: Towards a Hermeneutics of Visionary Encounter · ULL Global Souths · 2026
- Vision as Relationality · New Orleans Poetry Festival · 2026 with Lee Ann Brown, Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola, Gabrielle Octavia Rucker, Alicia Wright
- Telepathy in SF · ULL Global Souths · 2025
- Milton, Pico: Decolonizing the Epic · ULL Global Souths · 2024
- Visual Poetics · New Orleans Poetry Festival · 2024
- AI in Academic Writing · Northern Arizona Book Festival · 2024
- Keynote · NAU Peaks Brevity Conference · 2021
- Activism in Poetry · ASU Desert Nights Rising Stars · 2021 with Sherwin Bitsui, Solmaz Sharif, Alberto Álvaro Ríos
- Flora Levy Humanities Series reading with CAConrad · ULL · 2026
- Toronto Metropolitan University workshop · 2025
- Flux Festival Montreal · 2025
- Woodland Patterns reading & workshop · 2024
- The Splice Reading Series · 2024
- New Orleans Poetry Festival · 2024
- A Studio in the Woods · 2023
- Emerging Diné Writers Institute · 2021
- Witter Bynner Indigenous Poetry Series · 2021
- Letters Festival · Atlanta · 2020
- Frederick J. and Alice W. Dockstader Scholarship for Indigenous Scholars in the Arts
- Maurice DuQuesnay Research and Creative Writing Award · 2026
- Flora Levy Humanities Grant · 2026
- Florence Sanders Jones Award · College of Liberal Arts
- ULL English Department Social Justice Award
- Graduate Student Teaching Award · ULL Graduate School · 2025
- Dissertation Completion Fellowship
- ENGL 320 · Contact Narratives
- ENGL 360 · Other Ways of Knowing: The Diasporic Spiritual Autobiography
- ENGL 360 · Dreams and Other Ways of Knowing
- ENGL 223 · Indigenous Futurisms
- ENGL 223 · Dreams, Rituals and Mirrors
- ENGL 211 · Indigenous Literature
- ENGL 211 · World Indigenous Literatures
- ENGL 102 · Academic Composition and Rhetoric
- Adjunct at Northern Arizona University · 2023. Creative writing and meditation teacher at Acadiana CARES · ongoing.
- Tribal Councilperson · Atakapa-Ishak Nation · 2015–17
- Foreword, Atakapa-Ishak Nation language dictionary · contributor to ongoing language restoration work
- Founder & host · Queer Poetry Salon · Phoenix · 2019–21 featuring CAConrad, Raquel Salas Rivera, Tommy Pico, Jake Skeets, Ariana Reines, Eduardo C. Corral, Raquel Gutiérrez
- Composer of original poems and songs in Ishakkoy · documented in the 64 Parishes encyclopedia
- PhD Candidate · Creative Writing · University of Louisiana at Lafayette · in progress
- MFA · Creative Writing · Northern Arizona University · 2022
- BA · Music Composition · Louisiana State University · 2004
Lafayette, LA 70501
For contemplative practice and teaching, see The Living Path.