G. C. Waldrep

George Calvin Waldrep was born in South Boston, Virginia, in 1968. He received his BA from Harvard University, his MA and PhD from Duke University, and his MFA from the University of Iowa.

Waldrep is the author of eight poetry collections: The Opening Ritual (University of Chicago Press, 2024), the conclusion of a trilogy about chronic illness; The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021); feast gently (Tupelo Press, 2018), winner of the 2019 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; Testament (BOA Editions, 2015); Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (BOA Editions, 2011), in collaboration with the poet John Gallaher; Archicembalo (Tupelo Press, 2009), winner of the Dorset Prize and the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America; Disclamor (BOA Editions, 2007); and Goldbeater’s Skin (Center for Literary Publishing, 2003), winner of the 2003 Colorado Prize for Poetry.

With Ilya Kaminsky, Waldrep coedited Homage to Paul Celan (Marick Press, 2011) and, with Joshua Corey, he coedited The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012). 

Waldrep’s honors include prizes and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Lannan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Waldrep is a professor of English at Bucknell University, where he serves as the editor of West Branch. He is also the editor at large for The Kenyon Review. He lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.