Phillip B. Williams (born 1986) 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 ...

. Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, he is the author of the chapbooks ''Bruised Gospels'' and ''Burn'' as well as the full length poetry collections ''Thief in the Interior'' and ''MUTINY''.

Career

He graduated with an MFA from Washington University where he was a Chancellor’s Graduate fellow. For several years he was a faculty member at Bennington College. Williams was a Poetry Fellow at the 2018 Conference on Poetry at

The Frost Place The Frost Place is a museum and nonprofit educational center for poetry located at Robert Frost's former home on Ridge Road in Franconia, New Hampshire, United States. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. ...

. His poetry has been featured in '' Callaloo'', '' The Kenyon Review'' ''Online'', '' The Southern Review'', ''

Painted Bride Quarterly The ''Painted Bride Quarterly'', also known informally as ''PBQ'', is a Philadelphia-based literary magazine. It was established in 1973 by Louise Simons and R. Daniel Evans in connection with the Painted Bride Art Center, an art gallery founded ...

'', ''West Branch'', and ''Blackbird''. Williams is a Cave Canem Foundation graduate as well as co-editor in chief, with KMA Sullivan, of the online journal Vinyl. Williams' work has been praised for its "devout and excruciating attention to the line

hose A hose is a flexible hollow tube designed to carry fluids from one location to another. Hoses are also sometimes called ''pipes'' (the word ''pipe'' usually refers to a rigid tube, whereas a hose is usually a flexible one), or more generally '' ...

indispensable music fuses his implacable understanding of words with their own shadows." His debut novel, Ours, debuts with Viking Books on February 20, 2024.

Awards

''Thief in the Interior'' was the winner of the 2017

Kate Tufts Discovery Award The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. They are given to poets for their collections of poetry written in the English language, by a citizen or legal resident alien of the U ...

and the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. In 2017 Williams was awarded a

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

for Poetry. ''MUTINY'' was the winner of the 2022

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 ...

, finalist for both the 2022

PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given biennially to an American poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by ...

and

Publishing Triangle The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards prog ...

’s 2022 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

Bibliography

Poetry

;Collections *''Thief in the Interior'' (Alice James Books, 2016). , *''Mutiny: Poems'' (Penguin, 2021). ISBN 9780143136934 ;Chapbooks *''Bruised Gospels'' (Arts in Bloom Inc., 2011). , *''Burn'' - a chapbook within ''Frequencies, Volume One: A Chapbook and Music Anthology'' (YesYes Books, 2013). ISBN 9781936919116 ;Contributions to anthologies *Jericho Brown (ed) ''Prime : poetry & conversation'', Alexander, AR: Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014. , ;List of poems

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Phillip B. 1986 births 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American poets African-American LGBT people African-American poets American Book Award winners American gay writers American LGBT poets American male poets Gay poets Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry winners Living people The New Yorker people Poets from Chicago Washington University in St. Louis alumni