Jane Miller, head of the UA creative writing program, will be one of the featured poets at the 20th annual Tucson Poetry Festival this week.

In addition to being the head of the creative writing department, Miller has taught at Goddard College and at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow and has won a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Writer's Award.

This will not be her first appearance at the festival and she said she does not want it to be her last.

"This will be my second or third time (reading at the festival)," she said. "It's one of the longest-running festivals. I hope to be a part of it in the future."

The theme for this year's festival is conservation. The main question the festival hopes to answer is, "Have poets become conservationists of the natural and poetic worlds?"

Miller has authored seven books to date, including "The Greater Leisures," "American Odalisque," and "Working Time: Essays on Poetry, Culture, and Travel." Her newest work is "Wherever You Lay Your Head," a collection of poems described by the department of English as "unlike anything currently being imagined."

Miller's poetry can be described as erotic and sexually charged. She will be performing Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Loft Cinema, 3233 East Speedway Blvd. She will be alongside noted American Indian poet and author Sherman Alexie, who, at the age of 33, has authored over 300 poems.

"I have the pleasure of working with Sherman Alexie," Miller said. "I plan on sitting and listening happily to his work and then taking my turn."

Miller will be reading from her soon-to-be released eighth book, titled "Seven Mediterraneans."

"I am currently in negotiations with publishers to get 'Seven' released," she said, "so the release date is 'To Be Announced.'"