Poet Laureate Chelsea Rathburn

Check out her website here

Chelsea Rathburn is the author of three full-length poetry collections, most recently Still Life with Mother and Knife, a New York Times “New & Noteworthy” book released by Louisiana State University Press in February 2019. Still Life with Mother and Knife was named one of the 2019 “Books All Georgians Should Read” by the Georgia Center for the Book. Rathburn’s first full-length collection, The Shifting Line, won the 2005 Richard Wilbur Award, and her second collection, A Raft of Grief, was published by Autumn House Press in 2013.

Rathburn’s poems have appeared in the nation’s most esteemed journals, including Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The Southern Review, New England Review, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. In a 2019 feature, NPR called Rathburn’s work “arresting” and “a gentle whirlwind.” In 2009, she received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

While she was born in Jacksonville and raised in Miami, Florida, Rathburn has deep roots in the state of Georgia, where her mother’s family has lived since the 1830s. In 2001, Rathburn moved to Decatur after completing graduate school at the University of Arkansas. From 2013 to 2019, she lived in the North Georgia mountains with her husband, the poet James Davis May, and their daughter. There, she directed the creative writing program at Young Harris College. Rathburn is currently a professor at Mercer University in Macon.

Rathburn has taught poetry workshops in a variety of settings and served as a local, regional, and state-wide judge for Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest created by the National Endowment for the Arts.  “For me, one of the most thrilling aspects of teaching is helping my students find the language to tell their stories,” Rathburn says. “Many of the writers I work with are, like me, first-generation college students, and I want them to understand that their voices, their stories, matter.”

Appearances

To request an appearance by Poet Laureate Chelsea Rathburn at an event, please get in touch with her at: https://chelsearathburn.com/contact/