Gabrielle Calvocoressi
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Gabrielle Calvocoressi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 (age 51–52) Central Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet, professor |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Sarah Lawrence College Columbia University (MFA) |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Subjects | Small-town America, gender, sexuality, faith, history, mental health, the body |
| Notable works | Rocket Fantastic The New Economy |
| Notable awards | Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry (2018) National Book Award for Poetry finalist (2025) |
| Partner | Angeline Shaka |
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is an American poet, editor, essayist, and professor. Their poetry collection The New Economy (Copper Canyon Press, 2025) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.[1]
Gabrielle Calvocoressi was born in 1974[2] in central Connecticut.[3] Their family owned movie theaters, including a drive-in, in several small towns across the state.[4][5] Calvocoressi, who is a nonbinary lesbian,[6][7] has used their writing to reflect on their mother's mental illness and suicide;[8][9] their work also explores small town America, history, sexuality, faith, violence, gender, and the body.[10][8]
They studied at Sarah Lawrence College and earned an MFA from Columbia University.[3]
They have been a visiting professor of poetry at UCLA, Bennington College, and UC-Irvine, and held a Stegner Fellowship and a Jones Lectureship at Stanford University.[11] They also taught in the MFA program at California College of the Arts.
Calvocoressi is Poetry Editor at Large for the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB).[12] Stemming from their "deep interest in interdisciplinary approaches to writing, art, and ecological culture," they created Voluble, an "off-the-page makers’ space for writers and artists of all kinds," supported by LARB.[13][14]
They have written about their experiences with nystagmus and how the visual/neurological difference has shaped their work as a poet and a reader.[15][16][9]
They now teach in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers,[17] and at University of North Carolina Chapel-Hill, where they are an Associate Professor and Walker Percy Fellow in Poetry.[18] They live in North Carolina with their partner Angeline Shaka.[19] Currently, they serve as the director for The Frost Place Conference on Poetry in Franconia, NH.
Awards and honors
- 2000 Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University.[20]
- 2002 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.[21]
- 2002 Jones Lectureship at Stanford University.[11]
- 2006 Connecticut Book Award in Poetry, winner for The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart.[22]
- 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, finalist for Apocalyptic Swing.[23]
- 2012 Lannan Foundation Writers' Residency in Marfa.[24]
- 2018 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry (Publishing Triangle), for Rocket Fantastic.[25]
- 2025 National Book Award for Poetry, finalist for The New Economy.[1]
