Paul Guest

Paul Guest was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and holds a BA from the University of Tennessee and an MFA from Southern Illinois University. He is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Because Everything Is Terrible (Diode Editions, 2018). His first collection, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2003), was awarded the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. Notes for My Body Double (Bison Books, 2007) was awarded the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. 

Of his poems, poet Bruce Smith says, "They meditate, they hover, they extract the juice from the fractured self, they create a taxonomy of lost things."

Guest is also the author of the memoir One More Theory About Happiness (Ecco Press, 2010), which was selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. A Guggenheim fellow and Whiting Award winner, Guest was the Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day in July 2019. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.


Bibliography

Poetry

Because Everything Is Terrible (Diode Editions, 2018)
My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge (Ecco Press, 2008)
Notes for My Body Double (Bison Books, 2007)
The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2003)

Memoir

One More Theory About Happiness (Ecco Press, 2010)