The Elliston Poet-in-Residence
The George Elliston Poetry Fund has fostered the development of promising young poets and honored the achievement of established poets since 1951. Each year, through the Poet-in-Residence Program, a distinguished poet comes to UC to give public lectures and readings, while conducting seminars and workshops with graduate writers. The Elliston Fund also supports a writers series that has brought Nobel Prize Laureates, U.S. and British Poet Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and National Book Award winners– from early campus residencies by Robert Frost to more recently hosted Elliston Poets such as Laureate Tracy K. Smith and 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner Tyehimba Jess. Every reading has free and open to the public since the room's opening in 1951.
Douglas Kearney, Elliston Poet 2024
Talk (subject TBA)
April 2, 2024; 5:30 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Poetry Reading
April 4, 2024; 6:00 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Douglas Kearney has published seven collections, including Optic Subwoof (2022), the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize-winning Sho (2021), Buck Studies (2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and California Book Award silver medalist (Poetry). M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, Someone Took They Tongues (2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s Mess and Mess and (2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” WIRE magazine calls Fodder (2021), a live album featuring Kearney and frequent collaborator, Val-Inc., “Brilliant.” Kearney is the 2021 recipient of OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, created and generously funded by librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell. His operas include Sucktion, Mordake, Crescent City, Sweet Land (the Music Critics of North America’s Best Opera of 2021), and Comet / Poppea commissioned by AMOC (American Modern Opera Company). He has received a Whiting Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Altadena, CA, Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family.
Elliston Poets, 1951 to Present
2023 – Brian Teare
2022 – Heid E. Erdrich
2021 – Tyehimba Jess
2019 – Mary Ruefle
2018 – Amit Majmudar
2017 – Denise Duhamel
2016 – Carl Phillips
2015 – Mary Szybist
2014 – C. K. Williams
2013 – Claudia Emerson
2012 – Terrance Hayes
2011 – Albert Goldbarth
2010 – Alice Fulton
2009 – Lynn Emanuel
2008 – John Koethe
2007 – David St. John
2006 – Molly Peacock
2005 – Carl Dennis
2004 – C. D. Wright
2003 – Linda Gregerson
2002 – Henry Taylor
2001 – Rodney Jones
2000 – Jane Hirshfield
1999 – Wyatt Prunty
1998 – Jay Wright
1997 – Ellen Bryant Voigt
1996 – Dave Smith
1995 – David Lehman
1994 – Marilyn Nelson
1993 – Heather McHugh
1992 – John Haines
1991 – Jane Flanders
1990 – Alfred Corn
1989 – Marilyn Hacker
1988 – Gary Soto
1986 – Marge Piercy
1985 – Richard Howard
1984 – Jean Valentine
1983 – Johh Silkin
1982 – Thom Gunn
1981 – Carolyn Kizer
1980 – Michael Harper
1979 – John Ashbery
1978 – Louise Gluck
1977 – Philip Levine
1976 – Gary Snyder
1975 – William Stafford
1974 – Wendell Berry
1973 – Denise Levertov
1972 – Robert Wallace
1971 – Louis Simpson
1970 – John Wain
1969 – John Hollander
1968 – David Wagoner
1967 – Donald Justice
1966 – Donald Hall
1965 – Denis Donoghue
1964 – Daniel Hoffman
1963 – Donald Davie
1962 – John Press
1961 – Richard Eberhart
1960 – David Daiches
1959 – Karl Shapiro
1958 – Randall Jarrell
1957 – John Betjeman
1956 – Peter Viereck
1955 – Robert Frost
1954 – Robert Lowell
1953 – Stephen Spender
1952 – John Berryman
1951 – Robert P. Tristam Coffin