Cynthia Cruz

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Cynthia Cruz is a contemporary American poet. [1] She has published nine poetry collections, two works of cultural criticism, and a novel. [2] She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Columbia University. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, Cruz grew up in Germany and in northern California. [4] [5]

She earned her B.A. at Mills College. She earned her MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in Art Writing & Criticism at the School of Visual Arts, an MA in German Language and Literature at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, and a PhD in Philosophy at the European Graduate School, where her research focused on Hegel and madness. [6] [7]

Work

Cruz has published nine poetry collections. Her first collection, Ruin, was published by Alice James Books in 2006 and reviewed by The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, where it received a starred review. [8] Her second collection, The Glimmering Room, was published by Four Way Books [9] and launched at the contemporary art gallery Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden; it was also reviewed by The New York Times alongside the poet C. K. Williams. [10] [11] Her third collection, Wunderkammer, was published in 2014 by Four Way Books. How the End Begins was published in 2016, [12] Dregs, in 2018, [13] and Guidebooks for the Dead in 2020. [14] Her books have been reviewed widely. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [12] Her seventh collection of poems, Hotel Oblivion, published in 2022, [20] won the National Book Critics Circle Award [21] [22] and was also a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award. [23] Back to the Woods was published in 2023 and Sweet Repetition in 2025. [24]

She has published poems in numerous literary journals and magazines, including BOMB Magazine, The New Yorker, [25] AGNI, [26] The American Poetry Review, [27] Boston Review , Denver Quarterly , Guernica , and The Paris Review, and in anthologies including Isn't It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger Poets (Wave Books, 2004), and The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries, edited by poet Reginald Shepherd (University of Iowa Press, 2004). She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony as well as a Hodder Followship from Princeton University. [28] [29]

In spring of 2019 Disquieting: Essays on Silence, a collection of critical essays, was published by Book*hug. A second collection of cultural criticism, The Melancholia of Class, was published by Repeater Books in 2021. [30] In 2023, Four Way Books published Cruz’s debut novel, Steady Diet of Nothing. [31]

Cruz is editor, with the visual artist, Steven Page, of the interdisciplinary journal, Schlag Magazine. [32]

References

  1. ↑ About Cynthia Cruz | Academy of American Poets
  2. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  3. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". Poetry Foundation. 2019-09-28. Retrieved 2019-09-28.
  4. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  5. ↑ Poets, Academy of American. "Cynthia Cruz". poets.org. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  6. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  7. ↑ "CYNTHIA CRUZ". CYNTHIA CRUZ. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  8. ↑ "Ruin". Alice James Books. Archived from the original on May 3, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  9. ↑ "The Glimmering Room by Cynthia Cruz". Four Way Books. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  10. ↑ Latimer, Quinn (November–December 2012). "The Year in Books". Frieze (151). Archived from the original on 2012-12-19. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
  11. ↑ Jennings, Dana (December 31, 2012). "Poets Who Look Death in the Eye". The New York Times.
  12. 1 2 "Four Way Books » How the End Begins". fourwaybooks.com.
  13. ↑ "Four Way Books » Dregs". fourwaybooks.com.
  14. ↑ "Four Way Books » Guidebooks for the Dead". fourwaybooks.com.
  15. ↑ "Curiosity and rarity | Jacket2". jacket2.org.
  16. ↑ "Wunderkammer by Cynthia Cruz".
  17. ↑ "On How The End Begins by Cynthia Cruz". The Kenyon Review.
  18. ↑ "How the End Begins by Cynthia Cruz".
  19. ↑ "Dregs by Cynthia Cruz".
  20. ↑ "Four Way Books » Hotel Oblivion". fourwaybooks.com.
  21. ↑ Elmajdoubi, Halima (February 21, 2023). "Hotel Oblivion by Cynthia Cruz". National Book Critics Circle.
  22. ↑ Varno, David (2023-03-24). "Announcing the 2022 NBCC Award Winners". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  23. ↑ Morales, Brittney (February 21, 2023). "Finalists Selected for CGU's Prestigious Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards ·Claremont Graduate University". Claremont Graduate University.
  24. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  25. ↑ Cruz, Cynthia (February 1, 2010). "Diagnosis". The New Yorker.
  26. ↑ Cruz, Cynthia. "My Heart is the Smallest Catafalque". AGNI Online. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  27. ↑ Cruz, Cynthia (November–December 2008). "The Cinema Room". The American Poetry Review. 37 (6).
  28. ↑ "Index of MacDowell Fellows". The MacDowell Colony. Archived from the original on May 26, 2009. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  29. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton. Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  30. ↑ "Unknown". Archived from the original on November 13, 2019.
  31. ↑ "Cynthia Cruz". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  32. ↑ "Home". schlagmagazine.com.
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