Airea D. Matthews is an American poet. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and the co-director of the Creative Writing Program at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

. She was named the 2022-2023

Poet Laureate of Philadelphia Poet Laureate of Philadelphia is a civic position in the City of Philadelphia. The Poet Laureate has been described as an "Ambassador of Poetry". The holder of the position is expected to actively promote literacy and encourage expression in the c ...

Education and early life

Matthews received her B.A. in economics from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and an M.P.A. in Social Policy from Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, both at the

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Career and writing

Apart from her professorship at Bryn Mawr, Matthews is a visiting professor and scholar at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

. There she helped to develop the Poets and Scholars Summer Writing Retreat and the “Race, In Theory” Fellows Humanities Seminar. Her work has appeared in ''Best American Poetry 2015'', ''American Poet'', ''Four Way Review'', ''The Missouri Review,'' ''Muzzle,'' ''

The Baffler ''The Baffler'' is an American magazine of cultural, political, and business analysis. Established in 1988 by editors Thomas Frank and Keith White, it was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, until 2010, when it moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

'', ''

Callaloo Callaloo (many spelling variants, such as kallaloo, calaloo, calalloo, calaloux or callalloo; ) is a popular Caribbean vegetable dish. There are many variants across the Caribbean, depending on the availability of local vegetables. The main in ...

'', ''

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, poetry, ...

'', '' WSQ'', ''SLAB'', ''

Michigan Quarterly Review The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...

'', and ''Vida: Her Kind''.

Works

*''Simulacra'', Yale University Press, March 2017. ,

Awards and honors

In January 2022, Matthews was chosen as the sixth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia for the 2022–2023 term. Matthews was awarded a fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage in 2020. In 2016, she won the Yale Younger Poet award, 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 was ...

, and the

Louis Untermeyer Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961. Life and career Untermeyer was born in New Y ...

Scholarship in Poetry from the 2016 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

References

External links

"Airea, once."Episode 43: Airea D. Matthews
''Commonplace'',
"Airea D. Matthews, 2015 Literary Arts Fellow"
Kresge Arts in Detroit
"Airea Dee's Open Road"
Roadtrip Nation
"Airea D Matthews"
at Kore Press {{DEFAULTSORT:Matthews, Airea D. Living people American women poets Year of birth missing (living people) Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy alumni Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers Yale Younger Poets winners University of Michigan alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni Poets Laureate of Philadelphia Municipal Poets Laureate in the United States Writers from Philadelphia Pew Fellows in the Arts African-American Catholics