Alumni Spotlight: Nathanael Tagg

Department of English UNO – UNO English alum Nathanael Tagg is a full-time associate professor of English at Cecil College in Maryland. In addition to an MA in English from UNO, he earned an MFA from Rutgers, where he was a Truman Capote Literary Trust fellow.

Tagg’s time at UNO was incredibly formative. He taught composition here as a graduate teaching assistant from 2008-10 and as a part-time instructor from 2010 to 2012. That experience molded him into a more confident, effective instructor who has taught composition ever since. Now, as a full-time associate professor at Cecil College in Maryland and a part-time online instructor for Iowa Central Community College, he also teaches Introduction to Literature, World Literature, and Introduction to Creative Writing.

He is knowledgeable enough to teach these classes because of his UNO coursework, including classes in American literature with Charles Johanningsmeier, Shakespeare with Robert Darcy, and creative nonfiction writing with John Price, to name just a few. Taking David Peterson’s rigorous seminar on Whitman and Dickinson, as well as tackling his comprehensive exam reading list, helped Tagg develop a lifelong habit of closely reading literature to illuminate themes, not only as academic study, but also as wisdom for living. Tagg’s internship as a researcher for The Tallgrass Prairie Reader (University of Iowa Press, 2014, edited by Price) increased his interest in literature of place, a specialization he may pursue in the PhD in English/Creative Writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a program to which he was recently admitted.

Tagg wanted to earn a PhD right after he graduated from UNO with his MA in English, but his research plans were what he refers to as “fuzzy.” He was also working through some distracting personal issues. He states that he had a lot of maturing to do, felt a little adrift. Luckily, he was able to keep developing as a teacher by teaching part-time at UNO and Metropolitan Community College.

Along the way, he started writing a lot of personally therapeutic poetry; then he used what he had learned in John McKenna’s Publishing Nonfiction course to submit that writing to magazines. To his surprise, some of it was published, so he decided to take his writing more seriously. He landed a spot in the MFA program at Rutgers University, thanks in part to letters of recommendation from Nora Bacon, McKenna, Price, and Peterson. For his thesis, he wrote a collection of poetry, and a heavily revised version of that manuscript became his first published book, Animal Virtue.

His poetry uses animal imagery, humor, biblical allusions, literary references, and various poetic forms to explore the challenges of living well in times of personal, political, existential, and environmental troubles. Among his influences are the poets Emily Dickinson, Thomas Lux, and Carl Dennis. His mentors have included the poets Rachel Hadas, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Rigoberto González.

Animal Virtue was published by WordTech Editions, an imprint of WordTech Communications, in March 2018. Poet and La Times critic at large, Rigoberto González writes, “The charm of Nathanael Tagg’s Animal Virtue comes from its confident, unpretentious expression of curiosity about language and nature, its insights into everyday coincidences and encounters, and the daring to navigate the rocky waters between science and religion. His poems speak eloquently—and humorously—about the human impulse to search for greater meaning and connection. An exceptional debut!” More of Tagg’s poems and reviews are published or forthcoming in Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Cimarron Review, Confrontation, and many others. He thanks the UNO Department of English for helping him become the writer and teacher he is today.