Oliver Baez Bendorf | |
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| Born | June 21, 1987 Iowa City, Iowa, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of Iowa (BA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MFA) (MLIS) |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable works | The Spectral Wilderness (2015), Advantages of Being Evergreen (2019) |
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Oliver Baez Bendorf (born 1987) is an American poet.
Oliver Baez Bendorf was born on June 21, 1987, [1] in Iowa City, Iowa. [2] His poems sometimes feature the landscape of his childhood, [3] and his writing about returning to Iowa for a visit while transitioning genders was published in Buzzfeed. [4] He graduated with a BA from the University of Iowa in 2009. In 2013, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he met his teachers Lynda Barry, [5] Quan Barry, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Ronald Wallace. [6] In 2015, he received an MA in Library and Information Studies, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, [7] where he worked with The Little Magazine Collection, one of the most extensive of its kind in the United States. [8] [9] Bendorf is a fellow of the CantoMundo Poetry Workshop.
Bendorf's poetry publications include the book The Spectral Wilderness [10] , selected by Mark Doty for the 2013 Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize, and released by Kent State University Press in 2015, [11] and Advantages of Being Evergreen, which was selected for the 2018 Open Book Poetry Competition from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and published in September 2019. [12] American poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi called Advantages of Being Evergreen "an essential book for our time and for all time" and wrote that "Baez Bendorf is making a future grammar for the moment all of our vessels are free and held. I am living for the world these poems anticipate… This is a book of the earth’s abiding wonder. And the body’s unbreakable ability to bloom." [13]
His third book of poems, Consider the Rooster, published by Nightboat Books in 2024, [14] was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry [15] and was named one of the best poetry collections of 2024 by Lit Hub and Electric Literature. [16]
His work has appeared in publications including Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, [17] American Poetry Review, [18] BOMB, [19] Black Warrior Review, [20] jubilat, [21] Poetry Magazine, [22] and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. [23] He has published essays [24] and comics poetry, [25] in addition to poetry, and his poetry has been translated into Russian by Dmitry Kuzmin. [26]
He has taught poetry and creative writing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 826DC, Madison Public Library, District of Columbia Public Schools, Mount Holyoke College, Wick Poetry Center, Kalamazoo College, [27] Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, [28] and elsewhere. [29]
Bendorf is a transgender man, and has used his work to discuss gender identity and transition, sometimes in humorous ways. [30] [31] He is of German, Southern Italian, and Puerto Rican (Afro-Taíno and Spanish) ancestry. [32]
In 2020, Bendorf was awarded the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from Publishing Triangle, presented to an LGBTQ writer who has shown exceptional talent and promise. [33] [34] Bendorf was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. [35] In 2021, he joined the poetry faculty of the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. [36]
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