Larry Sawyer

Poet

Author's Bio

• Most all poetry and letters are archived at the Bancroft Library at Berkeley University; also archived at Yale, University of Chicago, University of Ohio

• Curator, milk magazine reading series at Type Books in Toronto (Canada) from 2021-2024

• Curator, Myopic Books Poetry Series in Chicago from 2005-2019

• Co-director, The Chicago School of Poetics

• Editor, lit mag, milkmag.org, which has featured poets such as Robert Creeley, Ron Padgett, Cid Corman, Frank Lima, Janine Pommy Vega, Clayton Eshleman, Sheila E. Murphy, and Jerome Rothenberg

• Editor Nexus magazine (Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio) 1992-1997

• Named Best Poet by The Chicago Reader in its 2012 & 2013 annual Best of Chicago readers' poll

• Of Unable to Fully California, his first collection, David Shapiro writes: "I fell in love with your 'blue fruit' and 'inescapable tomorrow,' also what seems like renunciation not of sentimentality but of cliché …I like even the quasi-Romantic dislocations here: 'There is a beauty to ice / only a statue understands.' I’m not a statue, so I only partially understand, but that should be more than enough for Sawyer's uncanny picnic on no grass … seemed as real as the Bronx, and I couldn’t stop thinking: I am so lucky that this poetry is so good."

Larry Sawyer died at the age of 54 on February 28, 2025.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion (Academy of American Poets, 2015)
,
A Writers’ Congress: Chicago Poets on Barack Obama’s Inauguration (DePaul Humanities Center Press, 2009)
,
The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2008)
Books:
Vertigo Diary (BlazeVOX, 2013)
,
Unable to Fully California (Otoliths Books, 2010)
Chapbooks:
Disharmonium (Silver Wonder Press, 2008)
,
Tyrannosaurus Ant (mother's milk press, 2003)
Journals:
Action Yes
, ,
Chicago Tribune
,
Coconut
,
Court Green
,
Esque
,
Exquisite Corpse
,
Milk
,
MiPOesias
,
National Poetry Review
,
Poets & Artists Magazine
,
Rain Taxi
,
Shampoo
,
Skanky Possum
,
Van Gogh's Ear
,
Vanitas
,
Verse Daily
,
VLAK

More Information

Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Dayton, OH
Ohio
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Apr 26, 2025