Suzanne Underwood Rhodes

Suzanne Underwood Rhodes received a BA in English from James Madison University and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in the Writing Seminars, where she held a teaching fellowship. 

Rhodes is the author of The Perfume of Pain (Alabaster Leaves Press, 2024); Flying Yellow: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete Press, 2021); Hungry Foxes (Aldrich Press, 2013); A Welcome Shore (Canon Press, 2010); The Roar on the Other Side (Canon Press, 2000); Sketches of Home (Canon Press, 1998); What a Light Thing, This Stone (Sow’s Ear Press, 1995); and Weather of the House (Sow’s Ear Press, 1994). 

Rhodes is the recipient of several awards and honors, including an Artists 360 grant from Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Dr. Lily Peter poetry award, two Pushcart Prize nominations, a Library of Virginia nomination for A Welcome Shore, and the first prize in poetry from Virginia Highlands’ creative writing contest. 

Rhodes is a cofounder of the Appalachian Center for Poets and Writers, and a former associate editor and guest editor of the now defunct Sow’s Ear Poetry Review. Rhodes served as an executive director for the Poetry Society of Virginia and is a board member of Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas. She taught creative writing at King University in Bristol, Tennessee, and St. Leo University in St. Leo, Florida. She also conducts remote poetry workshops and classes at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Rhodes owns and operates PR Flair, a small, independent communications business. 

The poet laureate of Arkansas through 2025, Rhodes lives, writes, and teaches in Fayetteville.