Stacy Szymaszek (born July 17, 1969 in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

) is an American poet, professor, and arts administrator. She was the executive director of the

Poetry Project The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church was founded in 1966 at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan by, among others, the poet and translator Paul Blackburn. It has been a crucial venue for new and experimental poetry ...

at St Mark's church from 2007 to 2018 and worked at

Woodland Pattern Book Center Woodland Pattern Book Center is a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Riverwest neighborhood that is dedicated to the discovery, cultivation, and presentation of poetry and the arts. The organization was founded in 1979 by Karl Gart ...

from 1999 to 2005. She is the recipient of a 2014

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

Fellowship in Poetry and a 2019

Foundation for Contemporary Arts The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), is a nonprofit based foundation in New York City that offers financial support and recognition to contemporary performing and visual artists through awards for artistic innovation and potential. It was ...

grant in poetry. Szymaszek is the author of five books: ''A Year from Today'' (

Nightboat Books Nightboat Books is an American nonprofit literary press founded in 2004 and located in Brooklyn, New York. The press publishes poetry, fiction, essays, translations, and intergenre books. History The press was founded in 2004 by Kazim Ali and ...

, 2018), ''hart island'' (

, 2015), ''Emptied of All Ships'' (

Litmus Press Litmus is a water-soluble mixture of different dyes extracted from lichens. It is often absorbed onto filter paper to produce one of the oldest forms of pH indicator, used to test materials for acidity. It is a purple dye that is extracted fro ...

, 2005) and ''Hyperglossia'' (

, 2009), as well as ''Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals'', which won the 2014 Ottoline Prize from Fence Books. Her three newest books comprise a trilogy of diaries that trace her experiences in New York City. Szymaszek's work favors the long form and takes influence from New York School poets in incorporating and engaging with the everyday. Szymaszek's poems, as writer

Kay Gabriel Kay Gabriel is an American essayist and poet. In 2019 she joined the editorial collective for the ''Poetry Project Newsletter, a'' quarterly publication for reviews, essays, interviews, poems, remembrances and arts criticism''.'' Gabriel is the ...

points out, work with Frank O'Hara's "I do this, I do that" mode of writing through experience and location. She has also authored numerous

chapbooks A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklet ...

of poetry, including ''austerity measures'' (Fewer and Further Press, 2012), ''Orizaba: A Voyage with Hart Crane'' (Faux Press, 2008), ''Stacy S.: Autoportraits'' (OMG, 2008) and ''Pasolini Poems'' (Cy Press, 2005). During her time in Milwaukee, she was the founder and editor of GAM, a free magazine featuring the work of poets living in the upper midwest. Szymaszek earned a B.A. at

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscons ...

. She grew up in the Milwaukee area and attended Catholic schools before moving around in her early twenties, including a summer at

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honor ...

's farm. From 1999 to 2005, she worked at

in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood. In 2005, she moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where from 2007 to 2018 she was executive director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church. In 2018–2019, she was the Hugo Visiting Writer at the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fal ...

.
/ref> She now lives in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

Notes

External links

*http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Szymaszek.php] PennSound Author Pages Living people 1969 births Writers from Milwaukee Poets from Wisconsin American women poets American lesbian writers 21st-century American poets American LGBT poets 21st-century American women writers {{US-poet-1960s-stub