Carolyn Beard Whitlow
Recipient of 2001, 2002 and 2006 Yaddo Residencies, 2004 and 2007 Residencies at the University of Connecticut's Soul Mountain, and a 2008 Residency at Hedgebrook, Carolyn Beard Whitlow, a Cave Canem Fellow, is the Charles A. Dana Professor of English at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, where she teaches courses in creative writing and African-American literature. Finalist for the 1991 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, she wrote her first poem at 30 years old while a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University. Subsequently, she completed the M.F.A. at Brown University, where she won the Rose Low Rome Memorial Prize in Poetry, and was named Phi Beta Kappa Poet in 1989. Lost Roads published her first collection of poems, Wild Meat, in 1986. Her poems have appeared in journals such as 5 A.M., Dos Passos Review, African American Review, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Indiana Review, 13th Moon, Obsidian II, Callaloo, Many Mountains Moving, Northeast Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Cold Mountain Review, and others. Her poetry and essays have been anthologized in A Formal Feeling Comes: Contemporary Poems in Traditional Forms by Women (1994); Strategy and Structure: Short Readings for Composition (1996; 1998); After New Formalism: Poets on Form, Narrative, and Traditon (1999); Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry (1999); American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement (2001); Writing Your Rhythm (2002); Touched by Eros (2002); What Matters (2002);The Paradelle: An Anthology (2005); Crossroads: Creative Writing Exercises in Four Genres (2005);Cave Canem 10th Anniversary Reader (2005); and Open Roads: Exercises in Writing Poetry (2005). Selected as one of ten North Carolina poets to appear on the 1997 PBS series "Poetry Live" hosted by Charles Kuralt, her most recent collection of poems, Vanished, was named a finalist for the 2005 Ohio State University/The Journal Prize in Poetry and won the 2006 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize, published by Lotus Press in Detroit. The North Carolina Arts Council named Vanished a notable book in 2006.
Renown as a reader of her own poetry, Carolyn has appeared on television and National Public Radio. A podcast of her reading is available at The Lumberyard Journal(Volume III, Episode I).
Carolyn was awarded Teaching Excellence Awards in 2003, 2006 and 2007.
Also a fiber artist, Carolyn has exhibited and sold her self-designed quilts at venues such as the Echo Gallery in Union Station in Washington, DC; the Washington Craft Show at the Washington Convention Center; the Sugarloaf Craft Fairs in Maryland and Virginia; and at the Winston-Salem Delta Fine Arts Center. Her quilts can be viewed through her website, www.colorquiltsbycarolyn.com. She enjoys spending quality time with her family and her 17 ½ year-old cat, Mac Stink.
To listen to a podcast of Carolyn reading "Hickey" go to Poetry GSO, and lick on the "recordings" link.
To listen to a podcast of Carolyn reading "Local Call" click here.