Oliver Baez Bendorf

Oliver Baez Bendorf (born 1987) is an American poet.

Oliver Baez Bendorf
Born (1987-06-21) June 21, 1987
Iowa City, Iowa, US
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Iowa (BA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MFA) (MLIS)
GenrePoetry
Notable worksThe Spectral Wilderness (2015), Advantages of Being Evergreen (2019)
Website
www.oliverbaezbendorf.com

Early life and education

Oliver Baez Bendorf was born on June 21, 1987,[1] in Iowa City, Iowa.[2] His poems sometimes feature the landscape of his childhood,[3] and his writing about returning to Iowa for a visit while transitioning genders was published in Buzzfeed.[4] He graduated with a BA from the University of Iowa in 2009. In 2013, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he met his teachers Lynda Barry,[5] Quan Barry, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Ronald Wallace.[6] In 2015, he received an MA in Library and Information Studies, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison,[7] where he worked with The Little Magazine Collection, one of the most extensive of its kind in the United States.[8][9] Bendorf is a fellow of the CantoMundo Poetry Workshop.

Career

Bendorf's poetry publications include the book The Spectral Wilderness[10], selected by Mark Doty for the 2013 Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize, and released by Kent State University Press in 2015,[11] and Advantages of Being Evergreen, which was selected for the 2018 Open Book Poetry Competition from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and published in September 2019. [12] American poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi called Advantages of Being Evergreen "an essential book for our time and for all time" and wrote that "Baez Bendorf is making a future grammar for the moment all of our vessels are free and held. I am living for the world these poems anticipate… This is a book of the earth’s abiding wonder. And the body’s unbreakable ability to bloom."[13]

His third book of poems, Consider the Rooster, will be published by Nightboat Books in 2024.[14]

His work has appeared in publications including Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day,[15] American Poetry Review,[16] BOMB,[17] Black Warrior Review,[18] jubilat,[19] Poetry Magazine,[20] and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics.[21] He has published essays[22] and comics poetry,[23] in addition to poetry, and his poetry has been translated into Russian by Dmitry Kuzmin.[24]

He has taught poetry and creative writing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 826DC, Madison Public Library, District of Columbia Public Schools, Mount Holyoke College, Wick Poetry Center, Kalamazoo College,[25] Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference,[26] and elsewhere.[27]

Bendorf is a transgender man, and has used his work to discuss gender identity and transition, sometimes in humorous ways.[28][29] He is of German, Southern Italian, and Puerto Rican (Afro-Taíno and Spanish) ancestry.[30]

In 2020, Bendorf was awarded the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from Publishing Triangle, presented to an LGBTQ writer who has shown exceptional talent and promise.[31][32] Bendorf was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.[33] In 2021, he joined the poetry faculty of the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.[34] As of 2023, he is the Teen Librarian at Boulder Public Library.[35]

Awards and honors

Works

  • Poem: "I Just Chose My Place and Let the Circle Form Around Me". The Nation. 2021.[45]
  • Poem: “Impervious”. The Cincinnati Review. 2020. [46]
  • Poem: “River I Dream About”. American Poetry Review. 2020.[47]
  • Poem: "Settler/Unsettled". BOMB Magazine. 2019.[48]
  • Book: Advantages of Being Evergreen. Cleveland State University Poetry Center. 2019. ISBN 9781880834008.
  • Book: The Spectral Wilderness: Poems. Kent State University Press. 2015. ISBN 9781606352113.

References

  1. "Bendorf, Oliver, 1987-". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
  2. "Oliver Baez Bendorf". Oliver Baez Bendorf. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  3. Sahaidachny, Rachel (2016-07-12). "The Spectral Wilderness / Oliver Bendorf". thesoutheastreview. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  4. Bendorf, Oliver Baez (21 January 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  5. "An Interview With Oliver Baez Bendorf | Poets & Writers". www.pw.org. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  6. "Graduate Creative Writing Faculty". creativewriting.wisc.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  7. Mears, Jaime (February 22, 2017). "Assembling the Whole: An Interview with Librarian|Artist Oliver Baez Bendorf". The Signal. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  8. "Little Magazine Interview Index – UW Digital Collections". Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  9. "The Oliver Bendorf Exit Interview". Little Magazine Collection. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  10. "The Spectral Wilderness - The Kent State University Press". www.kentstateuniversitypress.com. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  11. "2013 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Awarded to Oliver Bendorf | Kent State University". www.kent.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  12. "2018 Book Contest Results". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. 27 June 2018. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  13. "Advantages of Being Evergreen". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  14. "Queers in Winter with Oliver Baez Bendorf, Michael V. Smith and Hazel Jane Plante (on Zoom)". Creative Writing. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  15. Baez Bendorf, Oliver (2017-12-18). "Evergreen". Evergreen. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  16. "American Poetry Review - Oliver Baez Bendorf - "River I Dream About"". American Poetry Review. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  17. "BOMB 147 / Spring 2019". shop.bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  18. "Ritual by Oliver Baez Bendorf | BWR". BWR. 2018-01-11. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  19. "Number 24 - jubilat". www.jubilat.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  20. Magazine, Poetry (2019-04-02). "Bone Dust by Oliver Baez Bendorf". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  21. "The Body of the Poem: On Transgender Poetry - Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  22. Bendorf, Oliver (21 January 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  23. "Spotlight: A Poetry Comics Discussion". The Rumpus.net. 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  24. Бендорф, Оливер (2018). "Квирные факты об овощах". Воздух (in Russian). Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  25. "English: Faculty and Staff. Kalamazoo College". reason.kzoo.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
  26. "Faculty and Guests | Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences". www.middlebury.edu. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  27. "Events". Oliver Baez Bendorf. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  28. Bendorf, Oliver (January 20, 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
  29. Rodriguez, Mathew (September 23, 2016). "In Oliver Bendorf's 'Top Surgery' zine, a trans man uses humor to recover — and to educate". Mic.com. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
  30. "Settler/Unsettled by Oliver Baez Bendorf - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
  31. "Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists, Yiyun Li's Virtual Book Club, and More". Poets & Writers. 2020-03-17. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  32. "Oliver Baez Bendorf Wins Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award". The Publishing Triangle. 2020-03-16. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  33. "National Endowment for the Arts Supports the Arts with over $27.5 Million in Awards in First Round of FY2021 Funding". www.arts.gov. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  34. Caleb (2022-05-27). "Oliver Baez Bendorf". MFA Program for Writers | Warren Wilson. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  35. "AWP: Directory of Members". www.awpwriter.org. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
  36. "National Endowment for the Arts Supports the Arts with over $27.5 Million in Awards in First Round of FY2021 Funding". www.arts.gov. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  37. "Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists, Yiyun Li's Virtual Book Club, and More". Poets & Writers. 2020-03-17. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  38. "Oliver Baez Bendorf | the Gospel According to X". 8 January 2019.
  39. "2018 Book Contest Results". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
  40. "WI Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships". WI Institute for Creative Writing. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  41. "Oliver Bendorf, selected by Natalie Diaz - Poetry Society of America". www.poetrysociety.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  42. "Bear Deluxe Magazine". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  43. "2013 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Awarded to Oliver Bendorf | Kent State University". www.kent.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  44. Daily, Verse. "About Oliver Bendorf and The Journal". www.versedaily.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  45. Bendorf, Oliver Baez (2021-10-19). "I Just Chose My Place and Let the Circle Form Around Me". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  46. http://www.facebook.com/CincinnatiReview (2020-06-04). ""Impervious" by Oliver Baez Bendorf - The Cincinnati Review". Retrieved 2023-07-20. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); External link in |last= (help)
  47. "American Poetry Review - Oliver Baez Bendorf - "River I Dream About"". American Poetry Review. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  48. "BOMB Magazine | Settler/Unsettled". BOMB Magazine. 2019-06-25. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
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