Lee Ann Roripaugh is this Year's Mary Rogers Field and Marion Field-McKenna Distinguished University Professor for Creative Writing. She was the South Dakota poet laureate from 2015 to 2019 and is the author of five volumes of poetry: tsunami vs. the fukushima 50 (Milkweed Editions, 2019), Dandarians (Milkweed, Editions, 2014), On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), Year of the Snake (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), and Beyond Heart Mountain (Penguin, 1999). She has received many literary awards, among them the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award in Poetry/Prose for 2004, and a 1998 winner of the National Poetry Series.