Brenda Shaughnessy (born 1970) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

Life

Shaughnessy was born in Okinawa and grew up in Southern California. She received her BA in literature and women's studies at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

and MFA at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

. Her poems have appeared in ''Best American Poetry'', ''BOMB'', ''Conjunctions'', ''McSweeney’s'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The Paris Review'', ''The Yale Review'', and elsewhere. ''Our Andromeda'' (2012) was selected as a '' Library Journal'' "Book of the Year" and as one of the "100 Best Books of 2013" by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' as well as being shortlisted for both the 2013

PEN/Open Book Award PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...

and the 2013 International

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

. ''So Much Synth'', was published in 2016 by

Copper Canyon Press Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...

. Her fifth book of poems, ''The Octopus Museum'', was published by Knopf in 2019. She is Associate Professor of English in the MFA Program at Rutgers–Newark. She lives in

Verona, New Jersey Verona is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 14,572, an increase of 1,240 (+9.3%) from the 2010 census count of 13,332, which in turn reflected a dec ...

with her husband, the poet and editor Craig Morgan Teicher, and their children.

Awards

* 2018 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. *''Our Andromeda'', shortlisted for the 2013 International

and the 2013

. * ''Human Dark with Sugar'', winner of the

James Laughlin Award The James Laughlin Award, formerly the Lamont Poetry Prize, is given annually for a poet's second published book; it is the only major poetry award that honors a second book. The award is given by the Academy of American Poets, and is noted as one ...

from the Academy of American Poets, finalist for National Book Critics Circle award * ''Interior with Sudden Joy'', which was nominated for the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, a

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted ...

, and the Norma Farber First Book Award. * Bunting Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

* Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission Artist Fellowship.

Bibliography

Poetry

;Collections * * * * * ;Anthologies * * * * * ;List of poems * * * * *
"Epithalament", ''Fort.org''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaughnessy, Brenda 1970 births Living people 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers American people of Okinawan descent American poets of Asian descent American women writers of Asian descent American poets American women academics American women poets American writers of Japanese descent Columbia University School of the Arts alumni The New Yorker people People from Okinawa Island People from Verona, New Jersey Princeton University faculty Radcliffe fellows University of California, Santa Cruz alumni