Your Name: Deanna Kulpa, MS
Your Nickname: D or The Deaner (name that movie)
Born (place and year): August 30, 1970 at Munson Hospital in Traverse City, MI
Day Job: Human Genetics PhD student at the University of Michigan
Formative Childhood Experience: Being attacked by a rooster. I was 3. My mom told me to go let the chickens out of the coop so they could scratch around the yard for a bit, but "DO NOT LET THE ROOSTER OUT." Of course it muscled its way to the gate as I tried to only let the hens squeeze out, and it immediately went after me. As I turned tail and ran, it flew up and latched on to my back, pecking at the back of my neck. I ran around the yard screaming with this rooster clinging to my back until my mom came over and whacked at it with a broom until it finally let go. Nasty creature. I’ve been eating chicken with a big smile on my face ever since. True story.
Your Interests include: viruses, genetics, evolution, the pre-Cambrian species divergence, the meteor that killed
all the dinosaurs… and the fact that people get all up in arms about the high cost of medicine that took years to discover, research and develop, but it somehow seems reasonable to these same people that movie and sports stars make millions of dollars a year to mumble a few lines somebody else wrote or move a ball back and forth around various locations.
Last Book Read: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Ambition: Nobel Prize. I’m closer than you think.
Recent Accomplishment: Receiving the Amy Lutz Memorial Award from the Association for Women in Science in a national scholarship competition.
Prized Possessions: my autographed copy of Matt Ernst’s book The Postmodern Taxidermist From Outer Space, ash from the Mt. St. Helen’s eruption, and a red button.
When you started Slamming: 2002 
One-sentence description of your Slam/Writing style: I keep a journal of stuff I hear, what people say, general stories, then morph all of that into a
poem told from my own point of view.
Influences (poetic and otherwise): Anne Sexton, Alice Walker, Dorothy Parker, Gloria Steinem, Barbara McClintock, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin.
Favorite Slam Poet: Buddy Wakefield or Blair, I can’t decide which.
Favorite TV show: I don’t watch TV.
Favorite book: Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco or Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Both of them have elements in them that have haunted me for years.