Stanley Travis Rice Jr. was an American poet and artist. He was the husband of author Anne Rice.
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. He was the first United States Poet Laureate to serve three terms. Recognized worldwide, Pinsky's work has earned numerous accolades. Pinsky is a professor of English and creative writing in the graduate writing program at Boston University. In 2015 the university named him a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, the highest honor bestowed on senior faculty members who are actively involved in teaching, research, scholarship, and university civic life.
Mona Jane Van Duyn was an American poet. She was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1992.
Julia Randall was an American poet, professor, and environmental activist; recipient of many honors for her poetry, she published seven books of poetry culminating in The Path to Fairview: New and Selected Poems . Described as “one of America's purest and most original lyric poets”, her honors include the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America (1980), the Poets’ Prize (1988) for her book Moving in Memory, as well as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the National Institute of Arts & Letters (1968), and a Sewanee Review Fellowship (1957).
Lorna Gaye Goodison CD is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a leading West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now Professor Emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, serving in the role until 2020.
Stanley Plumly was an American poet and the director of University of Maryland, College Park's creative writing program.
Marcus Bruce Christian, was a New Negro regional poet, writer, historian and folklorist. The author of the collection, I Am New Orleans and Other Poems, Christian also compiled and wrote the still-unpublished manuscript, The History of The Negro in Louisiana during his stint at the Negro Federal Writers Project at Dillard University. After his death, his family bequeathed 256 cubic feet (7.2 m3) of his diaries, criticism, manuscripts, and scholarly papers to the University of New Orleans, where they currently reside.
Natasha Trethewey is an American poet who served as United States Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi.
Jim Weaver McKown Barnes is an American writer who was born near Summerfield, Oklahoma. He received his BA from Southeastern State University and his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas. He taught at Truman State University from 1970 to 2003, where he was Professor of Comparative Literature and Writer-in-Residence. After retiring from Truman State, he was Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at Brigham Young University until 2006. On January 15, 2009, Barnes was named Oklahoma Poet Laureate for 2009–2010. He describes his ancestry as "an eighth Choctaw" and "a quarter Welsh".
Martin Pousson is an American novelist, poet, and professor.
Sheryl St. Germain is an American poet, essayist, and professor.
Ron Smith is an American poet and the first writer-in-residence at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, Virginia.
Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry.
Julie Kane is a contemporary American poet, scholar, and editor and was the Louisiana Poet Laureate for the 2011–2013 term.
Brenda Marie Osbey is an American poet. She served as the Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2005 to 2007.
Beverly Matherne is an American poet, translator, and editor, specializing in free verse poetry, prose poetry, short short fiction, and lyric essay.
Catharine Savage Brosman is an American poet, essayist, and scholar of French literature and a former professor at Tulane University, where she held the Gore Chair of French Studies.
John Warner Smith is an American poet and educator. He formerly held the position as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in numerous published works.
Joyce Marie Jackson is the James J. Parsons Endowed Professor and chair of the department of geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A cultural anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and folklorist, she was also the director of the university's African and African American studies program from 2010 to 2016.
Alison Pelegrin is an American poet, writer, and English lecturer. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Our Lady of Bewilderment, Waterlines, Hurricane Party, and Big Muddy River of Stars (2007), which won the Akron Poetry Prize. In 2023, she was appointed the Poet Laureate of Louisiana, serving through 2025.
