Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. Dwight Garner argued in 2018 that she was perhaps "the most purely gifted poet of the 20th century". She was also a painter, and her poetry is noted for its careful attention to detail; Ernest Hilbert wrote “Bishop’s poetics is one distinguished by tranquil observation, craft-like accuracy, care for the small things of the world, a miniaturist’s discretion and attention."
Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Komunyakaa received the 2007 Louisiana Writer Award for his contribution to poetry.
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet.
Henri Cole is an American poet, who has published many collections of poetry and a memoir. His books have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Arabic.
Frederick Seidel is an American poet.
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. She is the author of nine novels and a collection of essays. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Orange Prize. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent novel, Absolution was awarded the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
Charles Wright is an American poet. He shared the National Book Award in 1983 for Country Music: Selected Early Poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for Black Zodiac. From 2014 to 2015, he served as the 20th Poet Laureate of the United States.
Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. Flesh and Blood won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Repair (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Singing won the 2003 National Book Award and Williams received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2005. The 2012 film The Color of Time relates aspects of Williams' life using his poetry.
Benjamin S. Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among many other honors. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Alicia Elsbeth Stallings is an American poet, translator, and essayist.
Christian Wiman is an American poet, translator and editor.
Maria Saskia Hamilton was an American poet, editor, and professor and university administrator at Barnard College. She published five collections of poetry, the final of which, All Souls, was posthumously published in September 2023. Her academic focus was largely on the American poet Robert Lowell; she edited several collections of the writings and personal correspondence of Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Elizabeth Bishop. Additionally, she served as the director of literary programs at the Lannan Foundation, as the Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Curriculum at Barnard College, and as an editor at The Paris Review and Literary Imagination.
Shane McCrae is an American poet, and is currently Poetry Editor of Image.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Maureen McLane is an American poet, critic, and professor. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Rowan Ricardo Phillips is an American poet, writer, editor, and translator. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Stony Brook University, the poetry editor of The New Republic, and the editor of Princeton University Press' Princeton Series of Contemporary Poetry. He is President of the Board of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
Danez Smith is a poet, writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. They are queer, non-binary and HIV-positive. They are the author of the poetry collections [insert] Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards, and the poetry collection “Homie/My Nig”. Their most recent poetry collection Bluff was published in 2024.
Francine J. Harris is an American poet. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Here Is the Sweet Hand, play dead (2016), and allegiance (2012). Harris was the winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Award. harris' first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her second collection, play dead, was the winner of the Lambda Literary and the Audre Lorde Awards, and was finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
Devin Johnston is an American poet. He has authored several poetry collections Far-Fetched (2015), Sources (2008), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, Aversions (2004), Mosses and Lichens (2019) and Telepathy (2001). His literary criticism and prose writing includes Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (2002) and Creaturely and Other Essays (2009).
