John Keene

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John Keene is an African American writer and translator, and the author of several collections, including Punks: New and Selected Poems (The Song Cave, 2021), winner of the 2022 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry; Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015); and Playland (Seven Kitchens Press, 2016).

Keene chairs the department of African American and African studies and teaches English and creative writing at Rutgers University–Newark. The recipient of a 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, he lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.