Poetry Faculty
March 2009 Poetry Conference
Christopher Buckley
Christopher Buckley is the recipient of a Fulbright Award in Creative Writing to the former Yugoslavia, four Pushcart Prizes, two awards from the Poetry Society of America, and NEA grants in poetry for 2001 and 1984. His most recent book is And the Sea, from The Sheep Meadow Press, 2006. Sheep Meadow Press also published his 13th book of poetry, Sky, in 2004. Over the past 25 years his poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Poetry, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares,
Ellen A. Kelley
Ellen A. Kelley has been writing professionally for both children and adults for over two decades. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, anthologies, and children’s books. She was awarded an Academy of American Poets prize in 1998, and was an Intro Journals National Prize winner and recipient of the Benjamin Saltman poetry award in 2000. A former elementary school teacher, Ellen has been a California Poet in the Schools, an Adult Education instructor, and a lecturer in the Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She teaches poetry workshops in Santa Barbara.
Lois Klein
Lois Klein holds a BA in English literature from Tufts University and an MA in psychology from Antioch University. Her chapbook Naming Water was published in 1998. Her new book, A Soldier’s Daughter, will be published by Turning Point Books in early 2008. Ms. Klein’s poems have won an “Excellence in Writing” award from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and have been printed in numerous regional and national journals, including Lucid Stone, South Carolina Review, Rivertalk, After Hours, Askew, Confluence, Spillway and Crowd. She has given readings throughout California and has been a featured presenter at the San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Poetry Festivals. Ms. Klein hosts the monthly Santa Barbara Favorite Poems Project readings, is a Fellow of the South Coast Writers Project, and teaches through the California Poets in the Schools program.
Perie Longo
Perie Longo’s love of poetry influences all aspects of her life. She is a poet-teacher through the California-Poets-in-the-Schools program, a registered poetry therapist and mentor/supervisor for those seeking training in that field, and a marriage and family therapist. For many years she has led the morning poetry writing workshop for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. She has published two volumes of poetry, Milking the Earthand and The Privacy of Wind. In 2002 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Marilyn McEntyre
Marilyn McEntyre has published two volumes of poetry (In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer’s Women and Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt’s Religious Paintings) and edited one (Where Icarus Falls). She has recently completed a manuscript of poems on Van Gogh’s paintings. Her poems have also appeared in various journals, as well as essays and articles.
Barry Spacks
Barry Spacks was named poet laureate of the city of Santa Barbara in April 2005. He teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara and has published stories, two novels, and nine poetry collections. The most extensive collection is Spacks Street: New and Selected Poems from Johns Hopkins. His newest collections (2004) are Regarding Women, winner of the Cherry Grove Collections Prize, and The Hope of the Air, from Michigan State University Press.
David Starkey
David Starkey is the author of a textbook, Poetry Writing: Theme and Variation, as well as several collections of poems from small presses, most recently, Fear of Everything, winner of the Palanquin Press’s Spring 2000 chapbook contest, and David Starkey’s Greatest Hits. Over the past 14 years Starkey has published more than 300 poems in literary magazines. He teaches at Santa Barbara City College and in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Paul Willis
Paul Willis has published numerous poems in journals such as Poetry, Ascent, Wilderness, and Christian Century. His most recent chapbooks are Poison Oak (Mille Grazie Press, 1999), The Deep and Secret Color of Ice (Small Poetry Press, 2003), and How To Get There (Finishing Line Press, 2004). With David Starkey, he has edited In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (University of Iowa Press, 2005). His first full-length collection of poems, Visiting Home, will be published this year by Pecan Grove Press.
Chryss Yost
Chryss Yost’s poetry is both sensual and traditional. She adapts familiar poetic forms to express a distinctly urban and post-feminist point of view. The music and playfulness of language are prominent in her work. Yost co-edited, with Dana Gioia and Jack Hicks, a groundbreaking anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present. She also co-edited, with Don Selby and Diane Boller, Poetry Daily: A Year of Poems from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website.
Gary Young
Gary Young is a poet and artist whose books include Hands, The Dream of A Moral Life, Days, Braver Deeds, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize, and No Other Life, which won the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America. His most recent book is Pleasure. He has received a Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He edits the Greenhouse Review Press, and his print work is represented in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Center for the Arts.
