Rickey Laurentiis

Laurentiis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1989.^[6] They were raised in New Orleans.^[1][7][8] Laurentiis earned a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 2011 and an MFA in Writing from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014.^[9]

Laurentiis's debut poetry collection, Boy with Thorn, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2015.^[7] Selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2014 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the book also won the 2016 Levis Reading Prize.^[10] It was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and a Lambda Literary Award.^[7]

Laurentiis received a Whiting Award in poetry in 2018.^[4] Their other fellowships include a 2012 Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2013 Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.^[7][6][8] Laurentiis was the inaugural fellow in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.^[7]

Laurentiis's second collection, Death of the First Idea, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2025.^[11] The book was longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry,^[11] and was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry.^[12][13] In 2026, Laurentiis was named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry.^[5]

• Boy with Thorn. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015.^{[7][14][15][16][17]}
• Death of the First Idea. Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.^{[11][18][19][20][21]}