Kathleen Graber is an American poet and professor of creative writing and poetry at

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...

. She has also taught at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Early life and education

Graber was raised in

Wildwood, New Jersey Wildwood is a city in Cape May County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area and is a popular summer resort destination along the Jersey Shore. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's year-ro ...

where she still owns a home. She studied under poet Stephen Dunn and went on to earn her BA in philosophy from New York University. She quit teaching middle school English to afford herself the ability to enroll in an MFA program and pursue a career in poetry. Kathleen said of the experience, "Most poets live humble lives, I think, and maybe that is by temperament or design, or maybe it is just a necessity."

Awards

Graber has earned many awards for her work including the

Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award was an award given annually to beginning women writers. Established in 1995 by American author Rona Jaffe, the Foundation offers grants to writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The award wa ...

(2003), the Amy Lowell Traveling award, a National Endowment for the Arts award and the

Guggenheim award Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

. She is a Hodder Fellow of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

finalist and a

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

finalist.
2020 UNT Rilke Prize.

Works

* ''Correspondence'' Ardmore, PA: Saturnalia Books, 2005 * ''The Eternal City: poems'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010 * ''The River Twice'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019

References

Living people American women poets Virginia Commonwealth University faculty New York University alumni New York University faculty 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers People from Wildwood, New Jersey Poets from New Jersey 1959 births American women academics The New Yorker people 20th-century American poets {{US-poet-1950s-stub