Cecily Parks
American poet and professor
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Cecily Parks is an American poet and professor. She is author of three poetry collections: The Seeds (Alice James Books, 2025); O’Nights (Alice James Books, 2015); and Field Folly Snow (University of Georgia Press, 2008).[1]
Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars (MA)
Columbia University (MFA)
CUNY Graduate Center (PhD)
Dr. Cecily Parks | |
|---|---|
| Occupations | Poet and professor |
| Awards | 2016 Pushcart Prize winner |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Rice University (BA) Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars (MA) Columbia University (MFA) CUNY Graduate Center (PhD) |
| Alma mater | CUNY Graduate Center |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | English |
| Institutions | Texas State University |
| Website | https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1922061 |
Biography
Parks was born in 1976.[2] She attended Rice University and graduated in 1999.[3] As an undergraduate, Parks contributed reporting to The Rice Thresher and developed an interest in poetry during her senior year after taking a workshop.[4][5] Following her graduation, she received her MA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars in 2000.[6]
Parks later earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia University and received her PhD at City University of New York, where she wrote a dissertation on American women writers and swamps.[7]
In 2020, Parks contributed spoken-word poetry to Stuart Hyatt's album Ultrasonic on the closing track, “Between the Hawthorn and Extinction.”[8] The song was described by Tony Rehagen of Indianapolis Monthly as a "spoken-word ode to the endangered [Indiana] bat that leans toward lament."[9] The poem was previously published in Orion under the title "The Indiana Bats."[10]
She currently lives in Austin, Texas, where she is an associate professor at the Texas State University MFA program for creative writing.[11]
Honors and awards
- 2005: New York Chapbook Fellowship[12]
- 2008: Finalist, Norma Farber First Book Award[13]
- 2016: Pushcart Prize[14]
- 2022, 2021, 2020 inclusions in The Best American Poetry[15]
- 2019: The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award[16]
Published works
Poetry collections
Chapbooks
- Parks, C. (2005). Cold Work. New York, NY: Poetry Society of America.[20]
Anthologies edited
- Parks, C. (2025). Best New Poets 2025. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.[21]
- Parks, C. (2016). The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. New York, NY, United States: Everyman's Library Pocket Poets.[22]