Jeffery Beam

Author's Bio

Jeffery Beam's work hailed for its "transcendent, lush beauty, its minimal sacrament, simplicity & physicality" fuses the physical & spiritual worlds, creating a conversation between the natural world, the body, & the spirit. Beam is the author of over 20 works of poetry, essay, & musical collaborations.

Publications and Prizes

Books:

The New Beautiful Tendons: Collected Queer Poems 1969-2012 (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2013), The Broken Flower (Skysill Press, 2012), Gospel Earth (Skysill Press, 2010), MountSeaEden (Chester Creek Press, 2010), An Invocation (Country Valley Press, 2008), The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems 1969 - 2007 (White Crane Books, 2008), Gospel Earth (Longhouse, 2006), Contemporay Gay American Poets and Playwrights (Greenwood Press, 2003), What We Have Lost: New & Selected Poems (Green Finch, 2002), Life of the Bee (Rock Valley Music, 2001), An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold (Horse & Buggy, 1999), Light and Shadow (Aperture, 1997), Visions of Dame Kind (The Jargon Society, 1995), The Fountain (North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1992)

Anthologies:

Collective Brightness (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011), Visiting Dr. Williams (University of Iowa Press, 2011), Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Light in Ordinary Things (Fearless Books, 2009), Charmed Lives (White Crane Books, 2006), New Growth: Shauna Holiman and Friends - New Songs and Spoken Poems (Albany Records, 2002), Gay Roots (Leyland Publishing, 1991), Son of the Male Muse (Crossing Press, 1983)

Journals:

Asheville Poetry Review, Assaracus, Carolina Quarterly, Damn the Caesars, Gargoyle, Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Yellow Silk

Prizes:

Have received numerous awards and grants including three American Library Association Notable Book and Gay / Lesbian Non-fiction Award nominations, a Pushcart nomination, an IPPY Ten Best Books Award, an Audie Award, an AIGA 50 Best Books Award, a Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival Award, a North Carolina Writers Network Blumenthal Writer and Reader Award, a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a Duke University Chronicle Award, a Writer's Digest Editor Award for best E-Zine poetry outlet, a 1998 Associated Press Holiday Gift Giving Ideas, and a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. His work as an educator was highlighted in The Compassionate Classroom: Lessons that Nurture Wisdom and Empathy by Jane Dalton and Lyn Fairchild. Beam is also the recipient of a Preservation Award from the 2004 Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, and the first annual Provost Award for Public Service from the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Public Service in 2000. His highly regarded readings were chosen thrice by The Independent Weekly as Best Bets & Eight Days a Week Our Picks, and as a Smart Bet by Asheville's Mountain Xpress newspaper. Beam has read at two North Carolina Literary Festivals and the UNC-CH North Carolina Collection's Second Sunday Reading series, was inducted in the North Carolina Writers Conference, was an invited guest to the Durham Public Library's Centennial NC Writers Gala, a 2002 Parade Marshal for the NC Gay Pride Festival, and served for ten years as a judge for the Lambda Book Awards.

Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Listing last updated: July 4, 2012

More Information

Listed as:

Poet

Gives readings?

Yes

Travels for readings?

Yes

Identifies as:

Appalachian, Celtic American, European American, G/L/B/T, Other, Scotch-Irish American

Prefers to work with:

Adults, At Risk Youth, Children, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender, Homeless people, Hospital patients, Naturalists/Environmentalists, Prisoners, Seniors, Teachers, Teenagers

Born in:

Concord, NC

Raised in:

Kannapolis, NC