Kerri Webster (born 1971) 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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. She was a recipient of a 2011

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...

. She currently teaches at

Boise State University Boise State University (BSU) is a Public university, public research university in Boise, Idaho, United States. Founded in 1932 by the Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopal Church, it became an independent junior college in 1934 and has b ...

Biography

Kerri Webster was born in 1971 and raised in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

. She is the author of four books of poetry and two chapbooks. She received her MFA from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

, and was Writer in Residence in the MFA program at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

(2016-2010). For ten years, Webster worked as
Writer in the Schools
conducting weekly creative writing workshops for students. She teaches in the MFA program at

. Webster’s poems have appeared in numerous journals including ''American Poet'', ''

Antioch Review ''The Antioch Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1941 at Antioch College in Ohio. The magazine was published on a quarterly basis. One of the oldest continuously published literary magazines in the United States prior to it ...

'', ''At Length'', ''Better'', ''BOAAT'', ''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', ''

Denver Quarterly The ''Denver Quarterly'' (known as ''The University of Denver Quarterly'' until 1970) is a literary magazine based at the University of Denver. It was founded in 1966 by novelist John Edward Williams. Publisher The magazine is published by the ...

'', '' Gettysburg Review'', ''

Guernica Guernica (, ), officially Gernika () in Basque, is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part (along with neighbouring Lumo) of the municipality of Gernika-Lumo ...

'', ''

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

'', ''

Indiana Review ''Indiana Review'' (''IR'') is a small, student-run literary magazine at Indiana University Bloomington. Founded in 1976, it has a circulation of about 2,000. A biannual review, ''IR'' publishes essays, fiction, graphic arts, interviews, poetr ...

'', ''

Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959 in litera ...

'', ''

Poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

'', and ''

Washington Square Review ''Washington Square Review'' (usually shortened to ''ON SQU'') is a nationally distributed literary magazine that publishes stories, poems, essays and reviews, many of which are later reprinted in annual anthologies. It is the graduate equiv ...

.''

Awards

* Whiting Award, 2011 * Iowa Poetry Prize, Jane Mead, judge, 2011 * Lucille Medwick Award from the

Poetry Society of America Poetry (from the Greek word '' poiesis'', "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any partic ...

Nikky Finney Nikky Finney (born Lynn Carol Finney on August 26, 1957, in Conway, South Carolina) is an American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at ...

, judge, 2013 * Crazyhorse Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, Dean Young, judge, 2006 * Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowships, 2004 and 2016 * Poetry Society Chapbook Fellowship,

Carl Phillips Carl Phillips (born 23 July 1959) is an American writer and poet. He is a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his '' Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.'' ...

, judge, 2003

Publications

Books

* ''Lapis'' Wesleyan University Press, 2022. * ''The Trailhead'' Wesleyan University Press, 2018. * ''We Do Not Eat Our Hearts Alone'', Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2005. * ''Grand and Arsenal'', Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2012.

Chapbooks

*
Rowing Through Fog
' (2003). Winner of the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, Published by the Poetry Society of America *
Psalm Project
' (2009). Published by Albion Books

Reviews

"Kerri Webster has my favorite living ear. And certainly it’s still one of my favorites when compared to the ears of the dead. But you should read this book he Trailheadbecause the lines buoyed by the ear are so often perfect wonders. “The stranger carves a gold tunnel / through the gold book. The river faces up neon, glows and / glows. I set my glasses by the bed, walk the river path. / Show me the gold tunnel. Show me where the gold tunnel goes,” for example, seems to me as perfect a wonder as poetry allows. How could you ''not'' read a book with those lines in it?”—

Shane McCrae Shane McCrae (born September 22, 1975, Portland, Oregon) is an American poet, and is currently Poetry Editor of ''Image''. McCrae was the recipient of a 2011 Whiting Award, and in 2012 his collection ''Mule'' was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Di ...

, author of ''In the Language of My Captor'' "Intuitive forces keep Webster’s poems moving ahead into unexpected but never gratuitous places. She can tweak the tone of a poem effortlessly at just the right moment, and her quirky vision is embodied in the most startling images."— Jane Mead, author of ''World of Made and Unmade'' "With impeccable grace and verve, Webster doubles down on a discomfiting stereotype, claiming it powerfully as a point of view. The book opens its concerns about sexuality and power into ecopoetic and larger ethical meditations."—Cathy Wagner, author of ''Nervous Device''

Elena Karina Byrne Elena Karina Byrne is a poet, visual artist, teacher and editor. Her poem "Irregular Masks" was featured in '' The Best American Poetry 2005'' and her poem "Berryman's Concordance Against This Silence" received a Pushcart Prize in 2008 for which ...

said of ''We Do Not Eat Our Hearts Alone'', "With gorgeous maneuvers in language, Webster multiplies image, subject and persona, the way a scientist splits atoms."

: "Taking on ‘our whole silly empire of sorrow,’ in which the holy is ever vanishing and the body—eager for more than ‘to be entered only metaphorically’—is always trembling, Webster’s poems announce an authentically original voice of astonishing intellectual and formal range, refreshing and disarming in its frankness. The vision here is fierce, intimate, and tireless in its determination to see this life squarely: ‘do the sacred miss the profane?’ Yes, Webster suggests—but if so, then it is also the case that the body is ‘an altar on which you can only lay down so much.’ Webster makes of this dilemma a meditation that ravishes with its sheer nerve and everywhere persuades by its commitment to lyric beauty, intellectual rigor, and to the power—at once rescuing and mutinous—of language itself." Of ''Grand and Arsenal'',

Lisa Russ Spaar Lisa Russ Spaar is a contemporary American poet, professor, and essayist. She is currently a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia and the director of the Area Program in Poetry Writing. She is the author of nu ...

wrote: “Obsessed as she was in her first book with time, with fetish and wunderkammer cataloging, with the blur between the sacred and the secular, Webster carries her flood subject matter into new turf in Grand & Arsenal: the political and the erotic, the praised and the indicted, the oracular and the silent.”

: "Kerri Webster’s voice is oracular, new, and legendary, full of land and weather. ''Grand and Arsenal'' rains forth like a liniment, painting the bald-faced human. Her penchant for opposites reminds us that difference is not a contrary thing but first cousin to who we are. When we read this new luminous voice we are led Upriver. This is Big poetry, a very special book where ‘the gods come down to the banks to drink."

References

External links

Author WebsiteBoise State University MFA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Kerri 1971 births Living people 21st-century American poets American women poets 21st-century American women writers Boise State University faculty Poets from Idaho American women academics Indiana University Bloomington alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty