Tiana Clark is an American poet. Clark is the author of ''Equilibrium'' and ''I Can't Talk About The Trees Without The Blood.'' Her work has been recognized with a

Rattle Poetry Prize ''Rattle'' is a quarterly poetry magazine founded in 1994, published in Los Angeles in the United States. It publishes poems both by established writers, such as Philip Levine, Jane Hirshfield, Billy Collins, Sharon Olds, Gregory Orr, Patri ...

and a

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

Biography

Clark received her B.A in Africana and Women’s Studies at TSU, then graduated from

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

's M.F.A. program. She worked as the editor for the

Nashville Review ''Nashville Review'' is an online, MFA student-run literary magazine at Vanderbilt University. A triannual review, Nashville Review publishes fiction, poetry, comics, art, nonfiction, and performance art videos. Past contributors include A ...

while at the university. The chapbook ''Equilibrium'' was published by

Bull City Press A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includi ...

after the manuscript won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. The book draws on religious themes and language to explore being both Black and a woman. ''I Can't Talk About The Trees Without The Blood'', Clark's first full length collection, was published by the

University of Pittsburgh Press The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The press ...

in 2018. Clark's poem "The Ayes Have It", a response to the

killing of Trayvon Martin On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of mixed race, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for his ...

was adapted into a short film by Savanah Leaf. Her poem "BBHMM" won a 2019

Recognition

* 2015

* 2016 Afaa Michael Weaver Award for Frost Place Chapbook Competition for ''Equilibrium'' * 2016 Academy of American Poets University Prize * 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize * 2017 Furious Flower's Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize * 2017-2018 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing * 2019

* 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award

Works

* ''Equilibrium: Poems'' Bull City Press, 2016. ISBN 9781495157646 * ''I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood'', University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. ISBN 9780822965589

References

Living people American poets American women poets Southern Illinois University Edwardsville faculty Vanderbilt University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-poet-stub