January
TC Tolbert often identifies as a trans and genderqueer feminist, collaborator, dancer, and poet. S/he is the author of Gephyromani a(Ahsahta Press, 2014) and four chapbooks of poetry as well as the coeditor, with Trace Peterson, of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2013). Tolbert teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Oregon State University–Cascades and is a lecturer at the University of Arizona. Tolbert is currently the poet laureate of Tucson, Arizona, where s/he lives.
February
Clint Smith is the author of Counting Descent (Write Bloody Publishing, 2016), winner of the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Smith is the recipient of fellowships from the Art for Justice Fund, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. He is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion. He lives in Washington, D.C.
March
Maggie Smith is the author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), the title poem from which has been translated into nearly a dozen languages; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015), winner of the 2012 Dorset prize and a 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award; and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005), winner of the 2003 Benjamin Saltman Award. Smith has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others. She works as a freelance writer and editor and serves as a consulting editor to the Kenyon Review. She lives in Bexley, Ohio.
April (National Poetry Month)
Tracy K. Smith is the poet laureate of the United States. She is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018). Her debut collection, The Body’s Question (Graywolf Press, 2003), won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2002. Her second book, Duende (Graywolf Press, 2007), won the 2006 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011) won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The recipient of the 2014 Academy of American Poets Fellowship and a 2005 Whiting Award, among other honors, she is the director of Princeton University’s creative writing program and lives in New Jersey.
May
Victoria Chang is the author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017); The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013), winner of a PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award; Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, 2008); and Circle (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005). Her collection OBIT, forthcoming in 2020 from Copper Canyon Press, won the 2018 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America. Chang, who received a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship, serves as a contributing editor of Copper Nickel and a poetry editor of Tupelo Quarterly. Chang also serves on the National Book Critics Circle Board. She teaches in the MFA program at Antioch University and co-coordinates the Idyllwild Writers Week. She lives in Southern California.
June
Samiya Bashir is the author of three poetry collections: Field Theories (Nightboat Books, 2017), winner of a 2018 Oregon Book Award: the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry; Gospel (RedBone Press, 2009); and Where the Apple Falls (RedBone Press, 2005). She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Astraea Foundation, Cave Canem, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, National Endowment for the Arts, National League of American Pen Women, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, among others. Bashir is an associate professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where she lives.
July
Paul Guest is the author of four poetry collections, including Because Everything Is Terrible (Diode Editions, 2018) and My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge (Ecco, 2008). A Guggenheim fellow and Whiting Award winner, he teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville.
August
Ruth Ellen Kocher is the author of several poetry collections, including Third Voice (Tupelo Press, 2016); Ending in Planes (Noemi Press, 2014); domina Un/blued (Tupelo Press, 2013), winner of the PEN Open Book Award and the Dorset Prize; and Desdemona’s Fire (Lotus Press, 1999), winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Award for African American Poets. Kocher has received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, Yaddo, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a professor of English at the University of Colorado–Boulder, where she also serves as the associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and the divisional dean for the arts and humanities. She lives in Colorado.
September
Eduardo C. Corral is the author of Guillotine, forthcoming in 2020 from Graywolf Press, and Slow Lightning, winner of the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets. His honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, as well as the Holmes National Poetry Prize and the Hodder Fellowship, both from Princeton University. He teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at North Carolina State University and lives in North Carolina.
October
Oliver de la Paz is the author of The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019) and Requiem for the Orchard (University of Akron Press, 2010), among others. A founding member of Kundiman, de la Paz is the recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University, and lives near Worcester, Massachusetts.
November
Sherwin Bitsui is the author of Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018); Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), which received a 2010 PEN Open Book Award; and Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press, 2003). Bitsui is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship, a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation, and a Whiting Writers’ Award. He teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
December
Paisley Rekdal is the author of six poetry collections, including Nightingale (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), Imaginary Vessels (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), and Animal Eye (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), winner of the 2013 Rilke Prize from the University of North Texas. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Amy Lowell Trust, Civitella Ranieri, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. In May 2017, Rekdal was named poet laureate of Utah, and is an inaugural Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She currently teaches at the University of Utah and lives in Salt Lake City.
