Camille T. Dungy (born 1972) 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 writte ...

and professor.

Career

Born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Dungy graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

(BA) and the

University of North Carolina, Greensboro The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG or UNC Greensboro) is a public research university in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina system. UNCG, like all members of the UNC system, is a stand-al ...

, where she earned her MFA. She is the author of four poetry collections – ''Trophic Cascade'' ( Wesleyan University Press, 2016), ''Smith Blue'' ( Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), ''Suck on the Marrow'' (

Red Hen Press Red Hen Press is an American non-profit press located in Pasadena, California, and specializing in the publication of poetry, literary fiction, and nonfiction. The press is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and was a final ...

, 2010) and ''What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison'' (Red Hen Press, 2006) – as well as a recent collection of essays entitled ''Guidebook to Relative Strangers'' (

W.W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton Ant ...

, 2017). Dungy is editor of ''Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry'' (UGA, 2009), co-editor of ''From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great'' (Persea, 2009), and assistant editor of ''Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade'' (University of Michigan Press, 2006). Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines, including '' The American Poetry Review'', ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'', '' Callaloo'', '' The Missouri Review'', ''

Crab Orchard Review Southern Illinois University (SIU or SIUC) is a public research university in Carbondale, Illinois. Founded in 1869, SIU is the oldest and flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system. The university enrolls students from all 50 s ...

'', ''Poetry Daily''. She is also a contributor to

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Let' ...

's 2019 anthology '' New Daughters of Africa''. Dungy's honors include fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, the

Virginia Commission for the Arts The Virginia Commission for the Arts (VCA), is the state agency that supports the arts through funding from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Commission was created in 1968, is governed by 13 Commissioners ...

, and the

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most p ...

Cave Canem Beware of the dog (also rendered as Beware of dog) is a warning sign indicating that a dangerous dog is within. Such signs may be placed to deter burglary even if there is no dog. History Warning signs of this sort have been found in Ancien ...

, the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

, and the

Sewanee Writers' Conference The Sewanee Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The conference was started in 1989 by founding director Wyatt Prunty and the current director is Leah S ...

, and she is the recipient of the 2011

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

, a 2010

California Book Award The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to everyone. Ac ...

silver medal, a two-time recipient of the Northern California Book Award, and a two-time

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...

nominee. Recently a professor in the Creative Department at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

(2011–2013), she is currently a professor in the English Department at

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

. In 2019, Dungy was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship 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 ar ...

for her poetry.

Awards

* 2019: Guggenheim Fellowship *2013: Sustainable Arts Foundations Promise Award * 2011: American Book Award * 2011: California Book Award Silver Medal * 2011: Northern California Book Award * 2010: Crab Orchard Open Poetry Series * 2010: Northern California Book Award * 2007: Dana Award in Poetry * 2003: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

Published works

Full-length poetry collections * ''Trophic Cascade'', Wesleyan University Press, 2016 * ''Smith Blue'', Southern Illinois University Press, 2011 * ''Suck on the Marrow'',

, 2010 * ''What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison'', Red Hen Press, 2006 Essays * ''Guidebook to Relative Strangers'', W.W. Norton, 2017 Editor * ''Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry'', University of Georgia Press, 2009 * * Anthologies *

Lucille Lang Day Lucille Lang Day (born December 5, 1947) is an American poet, writer, and science and health educator. Day has authored or edited 20 books and is a contributor to over 50 anthologies. She is best known as a poet and writer for her award-winning me ...

and Ruth Nolan (eds.), ''Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California''. Scarlet Tanager Books, 2018 * Melissa Tuckey (ed.), ''Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology''. University of Georgia Press, 2018 * Charles Rowell (ed.),''Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry'', New York: W. W. Norton, 2013 * Anne Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street (eds), ''The Ecopoetry Anthology'', Trinity University Press, 2013. * Joshua Corey and G. C. Waldrep (eds), ''The Arcadia Project'', Ahsahta Press, 2012 * ''New California Writing''. Heyday Books, 2012 *

Emily Rosko Emily Rosko (born 1979) is an American poet and is on the faculty of the College of Charleston. She is the author of ''Raw Goods Inventory'' (2006) and ''Prop Rockery'' (2012) poetry collections, both of which have won awards. Career Rosko rec ...

and Anton VanderZee (eds), ''A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line''. The University of Iowa Press, 2011 * Alison Deming and Lauret Savoy (eds), '' The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World''. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2011 * Nikki Giovanni (ed.), ''The 100 Best African American Poems''. Sourcebooks: 2010 * Julie Greicius and Elissa Bassist (eds), ''Rumpus Women, Vol. I'', The Rumpus Book Club, 2010 * ''The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed''. San Francisco, CA: Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010 * *

References

External links

Official website

"Camille T. Dungy"
'' Kenyon Review'' interview
Audio Reading: Camille Dungy Reading
''From the Fishouse''

on ''

Words on a Wire A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

'' * Poems:
''Black Nature'': Poems Of Promise And Survival
- audio report by '' NPR'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungy, Camille T. 1972 births Living people Stanford University alumni San Francisco State University faculty University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumni Writers from San Francisco American women poets American Book Award winners 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers 21st-century African-American writers African-American women writers Writers from Denver