Douglas Kearney, 3/12/24 - SAIC's Visiting Artists Program

Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, and librettist who has published seven books that bridge thematic concerns such as politics, African American culture, masks, the trickster figure, and contemporary music. His collections include Optic Subwoof (2022), the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize-winning Sho (2021), and Buck Studies (2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses Firecracker Award for Poetry, and California Book Award silver medalist (Poetry). 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. 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 Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and others.