Jaswinder Bolina was born in Chicago. He holds a BA in philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English with a creative writing concentration from Ohio University.
Bolina’s latest book, English as a Second Language and Other Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), won the 2025 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His debut collection of essays, Of Color, was published by McSweeney’s in 2020.
His previous poetry books include The 44th of July (Omnidawn, 2019), which was longlisted for the 2019 PEN America Open Book Award; Phantom Camera (New Issues, 2013), winner of the 2012 Green Rose Prize in Poetry; Carrier Wave (Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, 2007), winner of the 2006 Colorado Prize for Poetry; and the digital chapbook The Tallest Building in America (Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2014). Phantom Camera was also published internationally by Hachette India.
Bolina’s poems have been featured in The Best American Poetry series and have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and other journals. His essays can be found at The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Shenandoah, The Believer, the Poetry Foundation website, and elsewhere.
Bolina teaches in the MFA program at the University of Miami, where he is the chair of the English department and the creative writing department.
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More Jaswinder Bolina
Text/Audio: Read and listen to poems by Bolina at the Poetry Foundation
Text: On Ongoingness: A Conversation with Ada Limón and Jaswinder Bolina at New Ohio Review
Video: Bolina and Victoria Chang join in conversation for Twenty Summers
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Photo by Chantal Lawrie.