Oliver Baez Bendorf
Photo by Cate Barry
Bio
Oliver Baez Bendorf is the author of the poetry collections Advantages of Being Evergreen (CSU Poetry Center, 2019) and The Spectral Wilderness (Kent State UP 2015), selected by Mark Doty for the Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships and awards from CantoMundo, Lambda Literary, the Publishing Triangle, Vermont Studio Center, and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His poems appear in magazines including American Poetry Review, BOMB, New England Review, and Poetry, and were anthologized in Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. He was born and raised in Iowa and lived in Washington, DC, before earning his MFA in poetry and MA in library and information studies from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds a BA in English literature from University of Iowa. He teaches poetry as an assistant professor at Kalamazoo College in Michigan and is currently working on projects in both poetry and prose.
Like so many, I’ve floated through 2020 in a constant state of exhaustion. Here in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with my pandemic pod of my human partner and eight chickens and two rabbits, I've returned more deeply to the incredible solace of reading. It’s a solace I know well from coming of age as a queer bookworm in Iowa. Reading in this tumultuous year has re-grounded me in my purpose as a writer. What other writers—and the woods and rivers and fields and constellations—did and do for me is what I want to do with language. As an assistant professor, I learn every day from the 100+ writers that enroll in my classes each year. It can be tough at times to think beyond the next deadline, lesson plan, or meeting. This award grants me the gift of a different horizon in my imagination, a longer view. At this point in my career, this National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship comes as a mandate to continue to invest in my writing. It means I can ask difficult questions and take creative risks, with resources to realize my visions. I appreciate the support to dig deep and build a sustainable practice.