Luisa A. Igloria
About the Poet
Originally from Baguio, Luisa A. Igloria was appointed Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-22). The Academy of American Poets awarded her one of 23 Poet Laureate Fellowships in 2021, in support of public poetry projects. She is one of two Co-Winners of the 2019 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize for Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, fall 2020). In April 2021, the Writers Union of the Philippines (UMPIL) conferred on her the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas lifetime achievement award in the English poetry category. In 2015, she was the inaugural winner of the Resurgence Prize (UK), the world's first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. Former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey selected her chapbook What Is Left of Wings, I Ask as the 2018 recipient of the Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Prize.
Other works include The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (2014 May Swenson Prize, Utah State University Press), and 12 other books. Her poems are widely published or appearing in national and international anthologies, and print and online literary journals including Orion, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, Diode, Missouri Review, Rattle, Poetry East, Your Impossible Voice, Poetry, Shanghai Literary Review, Cha, Hotel Amerika, Spoon River Poetry Review, and others.
Luisa served as the inaugural Glasgow Visiting Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University in 2018. With over 30 years of experience teaching literature and creative writing, Luisa also leads workshops at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk (and serves on the Muse Board). She is a Louis I. Jaffe Professor and University Professor of English and Creative Writing— teaching in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, which she directed from 2009-2015. For over ten years to date, she has been writing (at least) a poem a day.
Region
Hampton Roads
Virginia City or County Affiliation
Norfolk
Years of Residence in Virginia
24
Current City/State of Residence
Norfolk, Virginia
Gender
Female
Race/Ethnicity
Asian
Year of Birth
1961
Keywords/Tags
ecopoetry, diaspora, (im)migration, women's literature, social justice
Website
Published Works or Performances
Full length, published books include:
- Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (co-winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Competition; Southern Illinois University Press, September, 2020)
- The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018)
- Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (winner of the 2014 May Swenson Poetry Award, judged by Mark Doty; Utah State University Press, 2014)
- Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2014)
- The Saints of Streets (University. of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013)
- Juan Luna's Revolver (winner of the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry; University of Notre Dame Press, 2009)
- More full length books and chapbooks are listed here: http://www.luisaigloria.com/books--chapbooks.html
Performances:
- Luisa Igloria reads 3 poems in Woodbridge, VA, October 11, 2021: https://youtu.be/oarHqQi_-VU
- Luisa Igloria, featured on WHRO Curate 757, April 14, 2021: https://mediaplayer.whro.org/program/curate-757/e/luisa-igloria-hqfjz9
- Indigenous Poetry: Language as a Map Home, featuring readings by Luisa Igloria: https://youtu.be/vzqo48AcxCw?t=1434
Selected Individual Poems or Performances
- Custody, 2021.
- Orchard, 2020.
- Fireworks, Harborfest, 2020.
- Tanaga: What Hailed Us & What We Made, 2021.
Luisa A. Igloria