Natasha Trethewey

Poet-in-Residence: 2008

Poet Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. Her first poetry collection, Domestic Work (Graywolf Press, 2000), won the inaugural 1999 Cave Canem poetry prize (selected by Rita Dove), a 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her second collection, Bellocq's Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002), received the 2003 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, was a finalist for both the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin and Lenore Marshall prizes, and was named a 2003 Notable Book by the American Library Association. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2003 and 2000, and in journals such as Agni, American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and The Southern Review, among others. She has a B.A. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and an M.F.A in poetry from the University of Massachusetts. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

She has taught at Auburn University, the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, and Duke University where she was the 2005-2006 Lehman Brady Joint Chair Professor of Documentary and American Studies.

Her most recent collection is Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin 2006), for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She is the recipient of the 2008 Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts for Poetry and was also named the 2008 Georgia Woman of the Year.

Each Fall the WCU Poetry Center hosts a distinguished poet to work with West Chester University undergraduate and graduate students. Our guest also makes public presentations as part of West Chester University's mission to bring Chester County residents rich and diverse programming in the arts. The goal of the annual Poet-in-Residence program is to enrich the study of poetry at WCU, and encourage life-long readers of verse among students and Chester County residents.  Please join us during the annual residency and experience the pleasures of poetry, one of the oldest and most fulfilling art forms

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