Beginning in 2018, the Academy of American Poets has invited twelve Guest Editors to curate a month of Poem-a-Day, the original and only daily poetry series sharing previously unpublished poems by today’s poets.
Learn more about the inaugural cohort of Guest Editors in 2018, read their poetry, and read the poems they curated for Poem-a-Day.
Kaveh Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran. He holds an MFA from Butler University and a PhD in creative writing from Florida State University. He is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017) and the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). Akbar is the recipient of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Pushcart Prize, and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Dawn Lundy Martin’s first full-length collection, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering (University of Georgia Press, 2007), was selected by Carl Phillips for the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Good Stock Strange Blood (Coffee House Press, 2017); Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life (Nightboat Books, 2014); and Discipline (Nightboat Books, 2011), which was selected by Fanny Howe for the 2009 Nightboat Books Poetry Prize.
Meghan O’Rourke is the author of three poetry collections: Sun in Days (W. W. Norton, 2017); Once (W. W. Norton, 2011); and Halflife (W. W. Norton, 2007), which was a finalist for Britain’s Forward First Book Prize. She is also the author of the memoir The Long Goodbye (Riverhead Books, 2011).
Tracy K. Smith is the Poet Laureate of the United States. She received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2014 and the James Laughlin Award in 2006 for her second book, Duende (Graywolf Press, 2007). Smith is also the author of Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), The Body’s Question (Graywolf Press, 2003), and Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011), recipient of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Matthew Shenoda is the author of three poetry collections: Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), winner of an Arab American Book Award; Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone (BOA Editions, 2009); and Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press, 2005), which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. With Kwame Dawes, he also coedited Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden (TriQuarterly Books, 2017).
D. A. Powell is the author of the trilogy of books Tea (Wesleyan University Press, 1998); Lunch (Wesleyan University Press, 2000); and Cocktails (Graywolf Press, 2004)—which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poetry collection Chronic (Graywolf Press, 2009) received the Kingsley Tufts Award and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent books are Repast: Tea, Lunch, Cocktails (Graywolf Press, 2014) and Useless Landscape, or a Guide for Boys: Poems (Graywolf Press, 2012).
Adrian Matejka was appointed state poet laureate of Indiana in 2018. He is the author of Map to the Stars (Penguin, 2017); The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), which won the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; Mixology (Penguin, 2009), which was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series; and The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003), which received the 2002 New York/New England Book Award.
Evie Shockley is the author of The Gorgon Goddess (Carolina Press, 2001); semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017); the new black (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), which received the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry; 31 words * prose poems (Belladonna* Books, 2007); and a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006). She was coeditor of the poetry journal jubilat from 2004 to 2007 and teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey.
Rigoberto González’s poetry collection Unpeopled Eden (Four Way Books, 2013), received the 2014 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He is also the author of the poetry collections Other Fugitives and Other Strangers (Tupelo Press, 2006) and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (University of Illinois Press, 1999), which was chosen by the poet Ai for the National Poetry Series, as well as numerous books of prose, including two bilingual children’s books.
Ross Gay is the author of Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Award; Bringing the Shovel Down (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011); and Against Which (Cavankerry Press, 2006). A founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin,’ and an editor of the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press, he teaches at Indiana University and lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Don Mee Choi was born in Seoul and came to the United States via Hong Kong. She is the author of DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020); Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016); The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010); Petite Manifesto, a chapbook (Vagabond, 2014); and the pamphlet Freely Frayed (Wave Books, 2014). She has received a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and the Lucien Stryk Translation Prize. Her most recent translations of Kim Hyesoon, a contemporary South Korean poet, are Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions, 2023); Poor Love Machine (Action Books, 2016); and Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018). She is currently a 2019 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program Fellow.
Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir and six poetry collections, including Milk and Filth (University of Arizona Press, 2013), a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. She was awarded an American Book Award for her memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds (University of Arizona Press, 2010), and the Juniper Prize for Poetry for her collection Goodbye, Flicker (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). She also coedited Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@Writing (Counterpath Press, 2014), an anthology of contemporary Latinx writing. She now serves on the planning committee for CantoMundo and as the publisher of Noemi Press. Her next collection of poems, Cruel Futures, will be issued by the City Lights Spotlight Series in 2018. Be Recorder will be published by Graywolf Press in 2019. She is a professor of English at Virginia Tech and with Stephanie Burt, poetry editor of The Nation.
