Monique Ferrell

Monique Ferrell is an award-winning writer. She is the author of several poetry collections: Attraversiamo (2016), Unsteady (2011), Black Body Parts (2002), and the forthcoming collection, bone (NYQ, 2026).

A three-time finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award, Ferrell’s other writing accolades/honorifics include: the 2023 Hedgebrook Artist in Residence Fellowship; the Winning Writers Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Honorable Mention Poetry Prize (2019); the 2017 Honor Book Prize for Poetry, sponsored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA); and The Julie Suk Prize For Poetry (2016), and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize (2016).

Ferrell’s poetry appears in the 2023 multi-award-winning documentary film: Reading the Body: Poetry & Dance on Recovery, which uses the work of poets and dancers to explore connections between movement, the spoken word, and what it means to heal from illness and trauma; she was also a featured poet on The Slowdown podcast, hosted by United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. Additionally, she has published in  American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, New York Quarterly Review, Reed Magazine, Talking River Review, Oroboro Literary Review, WinningWriters.com, North American Review, African Voices, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. A widely anthologized writer, her writing appears in Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Soul; Through The Ash, New Leaves; Token Entry: New York City Subway Poems; Out of The Rough: Women’s Poems of Survival; Rabbit Ears: Poems About Television; and forthcoming anthologies from NYQ Books (Without Doubt: poems illustrating faith) and New Millennium Writings.

Since 2021, Ferrell has been a reviewer for the distinguished Bellevue Literary Review (BLR) journal, where she has written about such noted authors as poet Khadijah Queen and essayist Elissa Washuta; additionally, she served as the journal’s interim poetry editor in 2023.  

Currently, Monique is conducting research for her next poetry collection, bloodroot, which seeks to trace her family back to the first enslaved African woman brought to America in bondage.