Three Poets Laureate: A Conversation

Tina Chang was raised in New York City. She is the first female to be named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn and is the author of the collections of poetry Hybrida (2019), Of Gods & Strangers (2011), and Half-Lit Houses (2004). She is also the co-editor of the W.W. Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (2008). She is the recipient of awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and the Van Lier Foundation among others. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and she is also a member of the international writing faculty at the City University of Hong Kong.

Paisley Rekdal is the author of six collections of poetry, in addition to three nonfiction and hybrid-genre books. Her most recent collection is Nightingale. Her honors include being named Utah’s Poet Laureate.

Kim Stafford, founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. His most recent poetry collection is Wild Honey, Tough Salt (Red Hen, 2019). He has taught writing in dozens of schools and community centers, and in Scotland, Italy, and Bhutan. In May 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9^th Poet Laureate by Governor Kate Brown.