About
Traci Brimhall is a university distinguished professor of creative writing at Kansas State University, as well as the 2025 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim. She is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Love Prodigal (Copper Canyon Press, 2024). Her nonfiction debut, The Grief Artist, will be published by Sarabande Books in 2026.
Known for her poems that often marry the ordinary with the surreal, Brimhall’s work has appeared widely in journals and magazines such as The New Yorker, Orion, The New Republic, Poetry, The Nation, and The New York Times Magazine. Through fellowships with the National Endowment of the Arts, National Park Service, and Academy of American Poets she’s taught writing workshops in farm schools, art museums, libraries, medical communities, and the outdoors. She’s also received a Karnes Fellowships through Purdue Library’s Special Collections to study the lost poem drafts of Amelia Earhart.
She is the current poet laureate of Kansas, where her initiatives have centered on uniting the state’s agricultural roots with the literary arts. Through poetry cookbooks, food-based mad lib poems, and bringing poetry to the State Fair, her literary arts advocacy seeks ways to bring the nourishment of language to all Kansans.
About my work
How would you describe your work?
Strange. Lyrical. Still in the honeymoon phase with language. I think facts are foreplay for wonder, and I’m always trying to braid objectivity and awe, ugliness and pleasure, the mundane and the sacred.
What is your writing practice?
This changes all the time! My life changes all the time as work and parenting demands shift, so my writing practice has to be flexible and adapt to fit each new shape of my life. But I like that. There are things that I think always show up in my writing voice, but I find new ways to write and play. And for me the process is more fund than the product.
What are your biggest influences?
Of course other poets are a major influence. My earliest loves from the U.S. were Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Larry Levis, Louise Glück, Tracy K. Smith, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Li-Young Lee, and Joy Harjo. Internationally, I fell for Hafiz, Paul Zweig, Anna Ahkmatova, Eduardo Galeano, Hilda Hilst, and Paul Celan.
But I’m also always mentioning to my students how memes and YouTube videos and even car commercials are hiding inside my poems. I’m also trying to sneak in all the names of X-Men because superheroes taught me a lot as a child about language’s power. There’s no one source of inspiration for poetry because our whole lives belong in lines.
Fellowships, Residencies, Grants & Awards
Recent Fellowships & Artist Residencies
- 2025 Poet-in-Residence, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
- 2024-2025 Laureate Fellowships, Academy of American Poets & the Mellon Foundation, New York, NY
- 2024 Ionion Center for Arts and Culture, Kefalonia, Greece
- 2023 Artist-in-Residence, National Park Service, Bighorn Canyon, WY
- 2023 My Time Fellowship, Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, Eureka Springs, AR
- 2022 SWWIM/Betsy Hotel Writing Residency, Betsy Hotel, Miami, FL
- 2022 Ayatana Biophilium, Mortem Artist Residency, Virtual
- 2022 Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Writing Residency, Nebraska City, NE
Past Fellowships & Artist Residencies
- 2018 Karnes Research Fellowship, Purdue University Libraries, Lafayette, IN
- 2018 The Moth Writing Residency, The Moth Magazine, Cavan, Ireland
- 2014 Meralmikjen Fellowship in Poetry, Breadloaf Writers Conference, Middlebury, VT
- 2013 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship: Poetry, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington D.C.
- 2013 Arctic Circle Residency, Arctic Circle Foundation, Svalbard, Norway
- 2012 University of Mississippi’s Summer Poet in Residence, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
- 2011-2012 Emerging Writer Fellowship, The Writer’s Center, Bethesda. MD
- 2011 Walter E. Dakin Fellowship, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Sewanee, TN
- 2011 Luso-American Scholarship, DISQUIET International Literature Program in Portugal
- 2010-2014 King Chávez Parks Future Faculty Fellowship, Western Michigan University
- 2009 Tennessee Williams Scholarship, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sewanee, TN
- 2008-09 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship, Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Madison, WI
- 2008 Writing Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
Book Awards
- 2020 Graywolf Nonfiction Prize (Finalist) for the manuscript The Grief Artist
- 2017 Julie Suk Award for Best Book of the Year on an Independent Press (Finalist) Saudade
- 2013 Levis Reading Prize from Virginia Commonwealth University (Finalist) Our Lady of the Ruins
- 2012 Diode Chapbook Competition (Winner) Bright Power, Dark Peace, authored with Brynn Saito
- 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize (Winner) Our Lady of the Ruins selected by Carolyn Forché
- 2011 National Poetry Series (Finalist) Our Lady of the Ruins
- 2011 ForeWord Book of the Year Award (Finalist) Rookery
- 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award (Winner) Rookery selected by Michelle Boisseau
- 2009 National Poetry Series (Finalist) Rookery
Individual Awards
- 2023-2026 Poet Laureate, the State of Kansas
- 2025 Early Career Excellence Award and Dept. of English Alumni Achievement Award, Western Michigan University
- 2023 Public Media Award for Performing Arts Programming: Poetry Out Loud with KTWU
- 2022 “Condenter” received a Pushcart Prize
- 2020 Cecil Hemley Award from Poetry Society of America (selected by Sally Wen Mao)
- 2020 Annie Dillard Award in Creative Nonfiction from Bellingham Review (selected by Sue William Silverman)
- 2014 “To Survive the Revolution” featured in Best American Poetry
- 2013 Jane Geske Award from Prairie Schooner (selected by Kwame Dawes)
- 2013 “Dear Thanatos” featured in Best American Poetry
- 2012 Just Desserts Short Fiction Prize from Passages North (selected by Roxane Gay)
Teaching & Research Awards
- 2024-present University Distinguished Professor, Kansas State University
- 2024 Big XII Faculty of the Year Award, Kansas State University
- 2023-2025 Michael Donnelly Award, (Winner) Kansas State University department of English
- 2021-22 SAGE Departmental Teaching Award, (Winner) Kansas State University Dept.
- 2019 KSBN Common Read Faculty/Staff Award, (Winner) Kansas State University, Hale Library
- 2017 Ron Gaches Undergraduate Teaching Award, (Winner) Kansas State University, College