Karen Kovacik

Karen Kovacik is the author of three poetry collections: Portable City (Hanging Loose Press, 2025); Beyond the Velvet Curtain (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2005); and Metropolis Burning (The Kent State University Press, 1999).

Kovacik is also a translator of poetry from Polish to English. With Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Mira Rosenthal, she co-translated Krystyna Dąbrowska’s Tideline (Zephyr Press, 2022), long-listed for the 2023 National Translation Award and a finalist for the 2022 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize. She is the translator of Jacek Dehnel’s Aperture (Zephyr Press, 2018), a finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. 

Kovacik, who served as poet laureate of Indiana from 2012 to 2013, is a professor of English at Indiana University and the director of English graduate studies at the university.