Elizabeth Willis
February 23–24, 2026
Bio
Elizabeth Willis is the author of the poetry collections
Liontaming in America, (New Directions, 2024);
Alive: New and Selected Poems (2015), a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize; Address (2011), recipient of the Laurence L.
& Thomas Winship/PEN New England Award; Meteoric Flowers
(2006); Turneresque (2003); The Human
Abstract (1995), a National Poetry Series selection; and Second
Law (1993). She is also the editor of Radical Vernacular:
Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place (2008). Her poetry has been translated
into French, Dutch, Polish, and Slovak. Willis earned a BA from the University of
Wisconsin–Eau Claire and a PhD in poetics at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship, Willis served as Shapiro-Silverberg
Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University from 2002 to 2015. Since 2015,
she has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.