Poetry

Printer’s Fist, by Melissa Range, has been selected as the 2025 winner of the Vanderbilt University Literary Prize. The prize competition received more than 250 submissions. Printer’s Fist is scheduled for publication in March 2026 from Vanderbilt University Press. Range will be in residence for a week in spring 2026 to engage students, faculty and the greater community with her work. Read More

Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English Major Jackson sees poetry as an art best appreciated in communion with others and approached through the senses as much as the intellect. He believes deeply in the power of poetry to break down barriers and foster understanding. Read More

The image of a writer often conjures up visions of an author sequestered away crafting the perfect poem or buried under stacks of paper finishing their next novel. However, award-winning poet and Gertrude Conaway Professor of English Major Jackson believes it is a deeply collaborative process that relies heavily on community. Read More

A panel of jurists selected Niu’s I Would Define the Sun, a collection of poems about resisting scarcity through language. The inaugural prize drew more than 300 submissions and honors Vanderbilt University’s strong connection to the arts. Read More

The new prize comes as Vanderbilt University marks its Sesquicentennial by honoring its strong connection to the arts.  Read More

A poem by Bryan Byrdlong, BA'15 Read More

The work of three Vanderbilt poets is to be included in the Best New Poets anthology for 2015. The new anthology highlights the work of 50 of the nation’s most promising poets. Read More

Section #8 of “Nights and Days of 2007: Autumn” is from A Map of the Lost World by Rick Hilles, Read More

An incredibly powerful poetry competition called “Louder than a Bomb” is changing the lives of teens across the country. One of the competition’s most successful poets is now a student at Vanderbilt. He’s also the star of a new critically acclaimed documentary. Meet Nate Marshall. Read More

This Week on VUCast, Vanderbilt’s weekly newscast  highlighting  research, experts, students, sports and everything Vanderbilt: How the Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam changed a Vandy student’s life How the GOP can attract Latino voters … Read More

Watch video of a lecture and performance by the Rev. Yvonne Gilmore-Essig. The Rev. Gilmore-Essig, who is a member of the D.C.-based Hip Hop group “Cornel West Theory,” spoke and performed Oct. 25 at Vanderbilt’s Divinity School. Her voice and thought are featured on the group’s recent release “The Shape… Read More

Watch Father Ernesto Cardenal, an acclaimed poet and liberation theologian, giving a reading of his poetry May 1. Cardenal recited poems from his recent collection The Origin of Species and Other Poems in Benton Chapel on the Vanderbilt campus. Cardenal, acknowledged as one of Latin America’s greatest living poets, is… Read More

Kate Daniels Kate Daniels, author of the soon-to-be-published A Walk in Victoria’s Secret and three other poetry collections, has been named winner of the 2011 Hanes Award for Poetry by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Daniels, associate professor of English at Vanderbilt University, will receive the Hanes Award in… Read More