Poets

Desiree C. Bailey

Desiree C. Bailey is a poet and fiction writer from Trinidad and Tobago and Queens, New York. She is the author of What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021), which was named winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and a longlistee for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Prior to this, Bailey authored the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater (O'Clock Press, 2016). Her work has been also published in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Short Fiction, Callaloo, and the Academy of American Poets website, among other journals.

Desiree holds a BA from Georgetown University, an MFA in fiction from Brown University, and an MFA in poetry from New York University. She is the recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Award, Poets & Writers’ Amy Award, and fellowships and residencies from the Norman Mailer Center, Kimbilio Fiction, Callaloo, Poets House, The Conversation, Princeton in Africa, and the James Merrill House. Bailey is currently Writer-in-Residence at Clemson University.

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Photo by Wilton Schereka.