Brenda Marie Osbey

Poet

New Orleans, LA
Louisiana US
Email: 
osbeynola@gmail.com
Website: 
www.osbeynola.com
Twitter/X: 
@OsbeyNola

Author's Bio

Brenda Marie Osbey is a poet, essayist and librettist working in English and French. Her seven books include her collected poems, ALL SOULS: Essential Poems (LSU Press, 2015), History & Other Poems (Time Being, 2013) and the chapbook 1967 (William & Mary, 2018). Edited works include features for Indiana Review, Poet Lore, War|Scapes, and Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems, Edited and with an Introduction by Brenda Marie Osbey (African Poetry Book Series, 2016). Named the first peer-selected Poet Laureate of the State of Louisiana in 2005, she spent her two-year tenure of service touring the United States presenting weekly poetry readings, lectures and symposia advocating the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region of the United States in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

She has taught Africana and American literatures at UCLA, Loyola University-New Orleans, Dillard University, Louisiana State University, Brown University and University of Virginia.

She has been a resident fellow of the MacDowell Colony; Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; Kentucky Foundation for Women; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Millay Colony; Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, Harvard University; Camargo Foundation; Maison Dora Maar; and 2018-19 Emilia Galli Struppa Fellow of Virginia Humanities.

Osbey is a New Orleans native.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
The Body Electric: The Best Poetry from the American Poetry Review (American Poetry Review, 2000)
,
The Yellow Shoe Poets: Selected Poems 1964--1999 (Louisiana State University Press, 1999)
,
Literary New Orleans (Hill Street Press, 1999)
,
The American Voice Anthology of Poetry (University of Kentucky Press, 1998)
,
Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (Norton, 1997)
,
Afro-American Writing Today (Louisiana State University Press, 1989)
,
2PLUS2: A Collection of International Writing (Mylabris Press, 1987)
,
Early Ripening: American Women's Poetry Now (Routledge, 1987)
,
The Made Thing: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry (University of Arkansas Press, 1987)
Books:
ALL SOULS: Essential Poems by Brenda Marie Osbey (Louisiana State University Press, 2015)
,
History and Other Poems (Time Being Books, 2012)
,
All Saints: New & Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 1997)
,
Desperate Circumstance, Dangerous Woman (Story Line Press, 1991)
,
In These Houses (Wesleyan University Press, 1988)
,
Ceremony for Minneconjoux (University of Virginia Press, 1985)
,
Ceremony for Minneconjoux (Callaloo Poetry Series, 1983)
Journals:
American Poetry Review
,
American Voice
,
Callaloo
,
Creative Nonfiction
,
Epoch
,
Georgia Review
,
Greenfield Review
,
Indiana Review
,
Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora
,
Southern Review
,
Women's Review of Books
Prizes won: 

2018–19 Emilia Galli Struppa Fellow of Virginia Humanities. 2015 Brown Foundation/MFAH Fellowship, Maison Dora Maar, Ménerbes, France. 2014 Langston Hughes Award, Langston Hughes Society, College Language Association (CLA). Honorary Doctor of Letters, Dickinson College, 2006. Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2005–2007. Camargo Foundation Fellowship, Cassis, France, Spring 2004. American Book Award, 1998. Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship, 1993. National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, 1990.

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
African American
Prefers to work with: 
Adults
Fluent in: 
French
Born in: 
New Orleans, LA
Louisiana
Raised in: 
New Orleans, LA
Louisiana
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: May 05, 2019