Douglas Kearney

Douglas Kearney has published seven collections, including OPTIC SUBWOOF (2022), the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize-winning SHO (2021), BUCK STUDIES (2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and California Book Award silver medalist (Poetry). M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, SOMEONE TOOK THEY TONGUES (2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s MESS AND MESS AND (2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” WIRE magazine calls FODDER (2021), a live album featuring Kearney and frequent collaborator, Val-Inc., “Brilliant.” Kearney is the 2021 recipient of OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, created and generously funded by librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell. His operas include SUCKTION, MORDAKE, CRESCENT CITY, SWEET LAND (the Music Critics of North America’s Best Opera of 2021), and COMET / POPPEA commissioned by AMOC (American Modern Opera Company). He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Altadena, CA, Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family.