January
Meg Day received a PhD from the University of Utah, where they were a Steffensen-Cannon Fellow and poetry editor for Quarterly West. They are the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award and a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. They are also coeditor of Laura Hershey: On the Life & Work of an American Master, published in 2019 as a part of The Unsung Masters Series through Pleaides Press. Day has received awards and fellowships from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, Hedgebrook, the International Queer Arts Festival, and others. They teach at Franklin & Marshall College and live in Pennsylvania.
February
Roger Reeves is the author of King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), winner of the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, and a John C. Zacharis First Book Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and a Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and Princeton University. An associate professor of poetry in the English Department at the University of Texas, Austin, Reeves’s second collection of poetry is forthcoming from W. W. Norton.
March
Dana Levin is the author of four collections of poetry, including Banana Palace (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) and In the Surgical Theatre (Copper Canyon Press, 1999), which received the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award and which was selected by Louise Glück as the winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Levin has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Whiting Foundation, among others. She has previously taught at the University of New Mexico, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, and the College of Santa Fe. She currently serves as a distinguished writer in residence at Maryville University and lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
April (National Poetry Month)
Joy Harjo was appointed the new United States Poet Laureate in June 2019 and is the first Native American poet in the history of the position. She is a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. Harjo is the author of several books of poetry, including An American Sunrise (W. W. Norton, 2019); The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (W. W. Norton, 1994), which received the Oklahoma Book Arts Award; and In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990), which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. Her memoir Crazy Brave (W. W. Norton, 2012) won the 2013 PEN Center USA literary award for creative nonfiction. Also a performer, Harjo plays saxophone and flutes with the Arrow Dynamics Band and solo; she previously played with the band Poetic Justice. Her other honors include the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, among many others. She has also received fellowships from the Witter Bynner Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2019, Harjo was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In addition to serving as U.S. Poet Laureate, Harjo directs For Girls Becoming, an arts mentorship program for young Mvskoke women, and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
May
Monica Youn received an MPhil from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is the author of Blackacre (Graywolf Press, 2016), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; Ignatz (Four Way Books, 2010), a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award in poetry; and Barter (Graywolf Press, 2003). Youn is the recipient of the Levinson Prize, as well as fellowships from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Stanford University, among others. She is also known for her work as a lawyer specializing in election law. She currently teaches at Princeton University and is a member of the Racial Imaginary Institute. Youn lives in New York City.
June 1– June 8
Ari Banias is the author of Anybody (W. W. Norton, 2016), which was named a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and the chapbook A Symmetry (The Song Cave, 2018). He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The MacDowell Colony, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Stanford University, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Poem-a-Day Summer Series, June 22-September 11
June 22–July 3
Major Jackson was born and raised in Philadelphia. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Absurd Man (W. W. Norton, forthcoming 2020), Roll Deep (W. W. Norton, 2015), and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Currently, he serves as the poetry editor of the Harvard Review. Jackson teaches at University of Vermont and lives in South Burlington, Vermont.
July 6–July 17
January Gill O’Neil was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and received a BA from Old Dominion University and an MFA from New York University. She is the author of Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018), recognized by Mass Center for the Book as a notable poetry collection for 2018; Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She is an associate professor of English at Salem State University and holds board positions at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and Montserrat College of Art. She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.
July 20–July 31
Mahogany L. Browne was born in Oakland, California. She received an MFA in writing and activism from the Pratt Institute and is the author of several poetry collections and chapbooks, including Kissing Caskets (YesYes Books, 2017), Smudge (Button Poetry, 2016), Redbone (Aquarius Press, 2015) and #Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out Online (Penmanship Books, 2010). She is also the author of the children’s book Woke Baby (Roaring Brook Press, 2018), among others. Browne is the founder and publisher of Penmanship Books. An award-winning performance poet, she has served as the poetry program director and Friday Night Slam curator for the Nuyorican Poets Café. Browne has received fellowships from the Arts for Justice Fund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, and Poets House, among other honors and awards. She is the Executive Director of Bowery Poetry Club, Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC, and Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
August 3–August 14
Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her BA from the University of California, Davis, and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (MA, 1970) and the University of Minnesota (PhD, 1979). Her books include My Seneca Village (namelos, 2015); The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 1997), which was a finalist for the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the 1997 National Book Award, and the PEN Winship Award; and The Homeplace (Louisiana State University Press, 1990), which won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award. Her honors include the 2019 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. From 2001–2006, she served as the Poet Laureate of Connecticut. Nelson was also awarded the 2017 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, given in recognition of a “storied literary career exploring history, race relations, and feminism in America.” In 2013, Nelson was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has taught at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, since 1978, where she is a professor emerita of English.
August 17–August 28
A. H. Jerriod Avant is from Longtown, Mississippi. A graduate of Jackson State University, Avant has earned MFA degrees from Spalding University and New York University. He’s a recipient of residencies and scholarships from Vermont Studio Center, the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference and Naropa’s Summer Writing Program. Avant has received two winter poetry fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a 2019 emerging artist grant from the St. Botolph Club Foundation. He’s currently a PhD candidate at the University of Rhode Island, and will curate a special series of Poem-a-Day from August 17-28, 2020.
August 31–September 11
Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. She received an MFA from New York University and an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida. Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. Her chapbook, The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016), was the winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize. In 2019, Sealey was named a 2019-2020 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. She has received fellowships and awards from CantoMundo, the Cave Canem Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, and the Elizabeth George Foundation, among others. She was the Executive Director at the Cave Canem Foundation from 2017–2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
September 14–October 15
David Tomas Martinez is the author of Post Traumatic Hood Disorder (Sarabande Books, 2018) and Hustle (Sarabande Books, 2014), winner of the Devil’s Kitchen Poetry Reading Award. A recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Verlaine Poetry Prize, Martinez has received fellowships from CantoMundo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
October 16– October 31
Ari Banias is the author of Anybody (W. W. Norton, 2016), which was named a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and the chapbook A Symmetry (The Song Cave, 2018). He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The MacDowell Colony, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Stanford University, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
November
Heid E. Erdrich is a poet, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. She is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain and the author of numerous collections including Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media (Michigan State University Press, 2017), as well as the forthcoming Little Big Bully (Penguin Editions, 2020) and Verb Animate (Tinderbox Editions, 2020). She is the editor of New Poets of Native Nations (Graywolf Press, 2018) and coeditor of Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers on Community (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002). She has received two Minnesota Book Awards, as well as fellowships and awards from the National Poetry Series, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Bush Foundation, Loft Literary Center, First People’s Fund, and others. Erdrich directs Wiigwaas Press, an Ojibwe language publisher; teaches in the low-residency MFA Creative Writing Program of Augsburg University; and is the 2019 Distinguished Visiting Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
December
Brian Blanchfield is the author of A Several World (Nightboat Books, 2014), which received the 2014 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is also the author of Not Even Then (University of California Press, 2004) and Proxies: Essays Near Knowing (Nightboat Books, 2016), which was named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. Blanchfield is the recipient of a Whiting Award and a Howard Foundation Fellowship. He was a poetry editor at Fence and is the founder and host of Speedway and Swan Poetry Radio on KXCI in Tucson. He teaches at the University of Idaho and in the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Moscow, Idaho.
January 2021
Fatimah Asghar is a poet, filmmaker, and educator. She is the author of If They Come For Us (One World/Random House, 2018) and the chapbook After (YesYes Books, 2015). A member of the Dark Noise Collective, Asghar has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Poetry Foundation. She is the writer and cocreator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls and lives in Chicago.
March 2021
Sasha Pimentel was born in the Philippines and raised in the United States and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of For Want of Water (Beacon Press, 2017), which was selected for the National Poetry Series by Gregory Pardlo, and Insides She Swallowed (West End Press, 2010), which received an American Book Award. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at Universität Leipzig in Germany. Pimentel currently teaches in the Bilingual MFA Program at the University of Texas, El Paso, where she lives.
April 2021 (National Poetry Month)
Jane Hirshfield is a poet, translator, essayist, and editor. Her books of poetry include The Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her ninth collection, Ledger, is forthcoming from Knopf in March 2020. She has edited and cotranslated books with Mariko Aratani and Robert Bly. Hirshfield’s honors include the Poetry Center Book Award, the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Literature, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, Columbia University’s Translation Center Award, and the Commonwealth Club of California Poetry Medal, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has been selected for seven editions of Best American Poetry and, in 2004, Hirshfield was awarded the seventieth Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by the Academy of American Poets. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2012 to 2017, and in 2019 was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
