Kazim Ali is the author of over twenty books of poetry, fiction, essay, and cross-genre work, most recently Sukun: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 2023) and The Man in 119 (Copper Canyon, 2026). His book Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton (BOA Editions) won the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism from the Poetry Foundation. He taught two short courses on the life and poetics of Lucille Clifton for the Writers’ Annex at the Community of Writers. He is a professor of Comparative Literature and Literary Arts and Associate Director of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, San Diego. The Community of Writers has named Kazim as the 2026 Lucille Clifton Honorary Chair.
2023 Staff Poets
Victoria Chang’s newest book of poems, Tree of Knowledge, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is a finalist for the National Book Award. With My Back to the World was published in 2024, also by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Corsair Books in the U.K., and received the Forward Prize for Best Collection of Poetry. She is a Professor at Georgia Tech and serves as the Bourne Chair in Poetry and the Director of Poetry@Tech, Georgia Tech’s poetry center.
Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/translator Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert, and has degrees in geology and literature. A signal voice for environmental poetics, his work often focuses on human and ecological intimacies. He is the author of Twice Alive, and Be With, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the collaboration, Knot, with photographer Jack Shear. His latest books are Mojave Ghost: a Novel-Poem and Across/Ground: Photographs by Lukas Felzmann.
Photo Credit: Ashwini Bhat
Carmen Giménez joined Graywolf as Publisher and Director in August 2022. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including Be Recorder, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. Her New and Selected Poems will be published by Noemi Press in 2027. She has been awarded fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Hermitage Foundation. carmengimenez.net
Photo Credit: Jason Gardner
Brenda Hillman was born in Tucson, Arizona and has lived in the Bay Area since 1975. She has published four chapbooks and twelve full-length collections with Wesleyan University Press, including Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation, a finalist for the 2026 National Book Award and Extra Hidden Life, among the Days (2018), winner of the Northern California Book Award. Hillman has received the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pen (Oakland) Lifetime Achievement Award. Her book of essays, Three Talks, was published by University of Virginia Press in 2024. Professor Emerita at Saint Mary’s College of California, Hillman serves as Poetry Director of the Community of Writers.
Photo credit: Louisa Michaels
Poet & scholar Evie Shockley thinks, creates, and writes with her eye on a Black feminist horizon. Her books of poetry include suddenly we (NAACP Image Award; National Book Award Finalist), semiautomatic (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; Pulitzer Prize finalist), and the new black (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). Her poetry has also received the Academy Fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and the Stephen Henderson Award. Her joys include participating in poetry communities such as Cave Canem and the Community of Writers, collaborating with artists working in various media. Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University.