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Dorothea Lasky is the author, most recently, of Animal, published in 2019 in the Bagley Wright Lecture Series. She is also the author of five full-length collections of poetry Milk (Wave Books, 2018), Rome (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2014), Thunderbird (Wave Books, 2012), Black Life (Wave Books, 2010), and AWE (Wave Books, 2007). She is also the author of six chapbooks: Matter: A Picturebook (Argos Books, 2012), The Blue Teratorn (Yes Yes Books, 2012), Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), Tourmaline (
Transmission Press, 2008), The Hatmaker’s Wife (2006), Art ( H_NGM_N Press, 2005), and Alphabets and Portraits (Anchorite Press, 2004). Born in St. Louis in 1978, she has poems that have appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, The Laurel Review, MAKE magazine, Phoebe, Poets & Writers Magazine, The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review, and 6x6, among other places. She is the co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (McSweeney's, 2013), co-author of Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac (with Alex Dimitrov, Flatiron Books, 2019) and is a 2013 Bagley Wright Lecturer on Poetry. She holds a doctorate in creativity and education from the University of Pennsylvania, is a graduate of the MFA program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and has been educated at Harvard University and Washington University. She has taught poetry at New York University, Wesleyan University, and Bennington College. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Poetry at Columbia University's School of the Arts and lives in New York City. -
Reviews
Lasky writes beautifully and lyrically, but in such a new and musical way it’s hard not to think of sunny hip-hop.
—Shane Jones, Nylon Magazine
Laugh, cry, or shake your head, Lasky cuts to the chase.
—Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Brooklyn Rail
If the essence is not in what she says, Lasky’s poignancy is the result of subtle insights, both endearing and intuitive, suggested by what language leaves out.
—Sophie Sills, Jacket2
She will force you to acknowledge the blackness of the blood pumping underneath your skin or the claustrophobia of loneliness, but she will not allow you to forget there is light, and that it can exist in knowing another person.
—Kristen Evans, Rain Taxi
Reviews of books by Dorothea Lasky
Animal
Milk
Thunderbird
Black Life
Awe
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Dorothea Lasky’s blog and twitter
Poems
-“The Miscarriage” (in Poetry Magazine)
-“Snakes” (on Granta)
-“A fierce and violent opening” (on Poetry Foundation)
- “The ghost” (on Poetry Foundation)
- “The Clog” (on Poetry Foundation)
- “The Portrait Gallery with Neon Toucans” (in Surface)
- “Tornado” (in The New Yorker)
- “What Is This Journey I Am On” (on The Daily Beast)
- “Genius” (in Gulf Coast)
- “The changing of the seasons is life and death seen gently ” (on Verse Daily)
- Three poems (in BOMBlog)
- Four poems (in Coconut)
- “So You Think You Can Move Fast” and“Fake Diamonds” (in Everyday Genius)
- Three poems (in Fou)
- Two poems (in H_NGM_N)
- Two poems (in The White Review)
. . . and in Spanish at Bird Poems!
Interviews
- Propeller, with Sheila Heti
- Library of Congress, with Caitlin Mohney
- Poetry Northwest, with Diana Khoi Nguyen
- BOMB Magazine, with Jonathan Aprea
- Phoned-In, with Luke Degnan
- The The Poetry, with Ben Fama
- Phantom Limb, with Jeffrey Allen
- Thoughts Interjected, with Nazifa Islam
- Huffington Post, with Travis Nichols
- Radio Boise, with The Poetry Show
- The Adroit Journal, with Lauren R. Korn
- LA Review of Books, with Natalie Eilbert
Articles by Dorothea Lasky
- “What Poetry Teaches Us About the Power of Persuasion” (at The Atlantic)
- “A Belief in Ghosts: Poetry and the Shared Imagination” (at JSTOR Daily)
- “The Poetic ‘Project’ (And Other Poetry-Associated Terms I Hate)” (at The Millions)
- Dorothea Lasky's top five “desert island disks” (for Poetry Society of America)
- “Hip Hop is American Poetry” (in Con / crescent)
- “A Brief History of My Love of Stevie Nicks” (in Coldfront)
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Audio
- Reading for Machine Project's Mystery Theater Poetry Archives:
- Reading of "The Green Lake" for the New Yorker
- Lecture “What Is Color in Poetry or Is It the Wild Wing in the Space of the Word?” for the Bagley Wright lecture series
- Dorothea Lasky’s page on PennSound
- Reading at the Kelly Writers House at UPenn
- Reading for BOMBblog
- Reading and interview for BOMB's Phoned-In
- Lecturing for The Library of Congress's Webcast
Video
- Reading for CAConrad's video reading series, Jupiter 88
Reading for Poeteevee:
Reading “I had a man” from Thunderbird:
Dorothea Lasky’s Tiny Tours
Living Room:
Kitchen:
Bathroom:
