Jennifer K. Sweeney

Sweeney is the author of four poetry collections, Foxlogic, Fireweed (Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska, 2020) winner of the Backwaters Prize,[1] Little Spells (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015), How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press, 2009), winner of the 2009 James Laughlin Award[2] and the 2009 Perugia Press Prize. Her first collection, Salt Memory (Main Street Rag, 2006) won the 2006 Main Street Rag Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines including Southern Review, Hunger Mountain, Crab Orchard, Spoon River and Passages North, where she won the 2009 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize. Her honors include a Cultural Equities Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission and a residency from Hedgebrook. Sweeney holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts and serves as assistant editor for DMQ Review. Born in 1973, she grew up in Tolland, Connecticut. After teaching in San Francisco for twelve years, she relocated to Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, poet Chad Sweeney.[3] She now lives in California.[4]

• 2019 Backwaters Prize in Poetry[5]
• 2009 James Laughlin Award
• 2009 Perugia Press Prize
• 2006 Main Street Rag Poetry Award

• Reviews

• The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > ISSUE THIRTY-SEVEN: Dec (06)- Feb (07) > Reviews > Review by JoSelle Vanderhooft of Salt Memory by Jennifer K. Sweeney

• Video/audio links

• "Of Gravity and Will". Moe's Books, Berkeley, CA, August 2008.
• "Full Poetry Reading at Moe's". Moe's Books, Berkeley, CA, August 2008.
• "Apology," "Ode to a Banana Slug". Parthenon West Review, Issue 1, 2004.