fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

Aracelis Girmay (born December 10, 1977)[1] is an American poet. She is the author of three poetry collections, including Kingdom Animalia (2011), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. She is also Assistant Professor of Poetry at Hampshire College.

Aracelis Girmay
Born	(1977-12-10) December 10, 1977 (age 44)[1]
Occupation	Poet
Education	Connecticut College (BA) New York University (MFA)

Early life

Aracelis Girmay is of Eritrean heritage[2] and from Santa Ana, California.[3] She attended Connecticut College[4] and earned a Master of Fine Arts from New York University.[5]

Career

Girmay's first collection was Teeth (2007), for which she won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award.[6]

In 2011, Girmay published Kingdom Animalia, for which she was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.[7] At The Rumpus, Camille T. Dungy said, "Girmay writes of ways we can be brought together, and ways the world separates us."[8] Junot Diaz has said his favorite poem is Kingdom Animalia's titular poem,[9] writing in The New York Times:

I remember rereading these lines shortly after I lost my sister:

Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.

Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,

when dirt’s the only animal who will sleep with you

& touch you with

its mouth.

And I was never the same.[10]

The Black Maria (2016) was Girmay's third collection.[11] Selecting The Black Maria as a "Pick of the Week" in April 2016, Publishers Weekly described it as "a moving collection of lyrical, image-thick poems that balance on the knife edge separating vulnerability and unapologetic strength."[12] The Boston Globe named it one of the best books of 2016.[13]

Girmay is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Hampshire College.[14]

Awards

2009 winner, Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award

• 2011 finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, poetry, for Kingdom Animalia
• 2015 winner, Whiting Award for poetry[15]

Works

• Teeth Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2007. ISBN 9781931896368, OCLC 255642172
• Changing, changing, New York: George Braziller, 2005. ISBN 9780807615539, OCLC 57352696
• Kingdom animalia : poems, Rochester, NY: Boa Editions, 2011. ISBN 9781934414620, OCLC 830153138
• The Black Maria Rochester, NY: BOA Editions Ltd. 2016. ISBN 9781942683025, OCLC 991299177

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aracelis Girmay.

• Interview with Aracelis Grimay at the Boston Review
• Girmay Interview by Claire Schwartz at the Bennington Review

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