Sarah Rose Nordgren
Sarah Rose Nordgren is an award-winning poet, nonfiction writer, and educator. She is the author of four books of poetry and prose, including, most recently, Feathers: A Bird Hat Wearer’s Journal (Essay Press, 2024), which earned the Essay Press Book Prize and was called “a one-of-a-kind book that raises great insights into flesh and forms of theory and poetry” by judge Ronaldo Wilson; as well as the poetry collections Darwin’s Mother (University of Pittsburgh, 2017) and Best Bones (University of Pittsburgh, 2014), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize; and the chapbook The Creation Museum (Harbor Editions, 2022).
Nordgren holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in poetry from University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati. She has been teaching creative writing for over fifteen years, including at University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, Miami University of Ohio, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and has advised masters students at Stockholm University in Sweden.
Her work has been honored with two fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and has received support from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences, The Virginia Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Ohio Arts Council. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Agni, and Narrative, and have been featured by PBS Newshour, The Slowdown podcast, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
Student Feedback for Sarah Rose
The best part of working with Sarah Rose was her genuine enthusiasm for the success of my poems–enthusiasm coupled with an extensive knowledge of poetry and craft. I felt she brought the same care, thoughtfulness, and precision to helping me revise my own poems as she would to her own work. Her feedback has depth and heart. Quinn Lewis
Sarah is one of the best poetry teachers I have worked with. She takes time to find out the creative concerns of each and every one of her students, and tailor her feedback for them accordingly. As an artist who moves between forms, Sarah is also extremely attentive to how her students can broaden their intellectual and artistic horizon. Her insightful feedback led me to re-examine lines and stanzas that, in my mind, had already ossified, and thus, see each and every poem anew. Nandini Dhar author of Historians of Redundant Moments
Sarah Rose was instrumental in helping me re-define and refresh my efforts in writing poetry. Her keen critique and in-depth feedback encouraged me to take my work to the next level, resulting in the publication of several individual poems, and ultimately to the publication of my debut poetry chapbook. With Sarah Rose’s guidance, I felt motivated to write into the art of finding poetry everywhere! Alan Perry, author of Clerk of the Dead
Sarah Rose possesses a keen eye for detail and offers expert advice on how to improve poems. But best of all, she doesn’t merely suggest, she inspires, and helps writers to see their work in new ways. She sets them on a path to finding exactly what the poem or manuscript needs. Cheryl Whitehead, author of Distant Relations
