Profile
Wendy Xu is a poet and educator, most recently the author of The Past (Wesleyan U. Press, 2021), and Phrasis (2017), named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by the New York Times Book Review.
Her debut poetry collection You Are Not Dead (2013), was named by Poets & Writers Magazine as one of the year’s Top 10 debuts. Xu was awarded the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry in 2011, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2014, and her poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The New Republic, New York Review of Books, Granta, Poetry, Tin House, Ploughshares, Conjunctions, and widely elsewhere. Fiction and essays have appeared in BOMB, BuzzFeed, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and elsewhere.
She holds an MFA from the Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and has been on creative writing faculty at NYU and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Columbia University before joining the full-time faculty at The New School.
Degrees Held
B.A., English, University of Iowa
M.F.A., Poetry, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Recent Publications
BOOKS:
The Past (Wesleyan University Press, 2021)
Phrasis (Fence Books, 2017)
You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013)
CHAPBOOKS:
Naturalism (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015)
Phrasis (Black Cake Records, 2014)
The Hero Poems (H_NGM_N, 2011)
ANTHOLOGIES:
“Tian’anmen Sonnet” [Dead air in air … ], Why Are They So Afraid of the Lotus? (Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art x Sternberg Press, Spring 2021
“On Wang Wei’s Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountain,” Provisions: Poems Held Close Anthology (Jewish Currents, 2021)
"Phrasis," Task Force," To Gather Your Leaving, Asian Diapora Writing from United States/Australia/UK (Ethos Books, SIngapore, 2019)
"Pastoral," "Looking at My Father," Contemporary American Women Poets, (Edizioni Ensemble, Rome, 2019)
“The Place That I Live,” Go Home! An Asian American Anthology (Feminist Press, 2018)
“Naturalization Study,” Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism (OR Press, 2018)
“Where the Hero Speaks to Others,” Make X: A Decade of Make Magazine (2016)
from “Notes for an Opening,” The Best of the Lifted Brow Vol. 2 (2016)
“Linear Travel,” Poems for Political Disaster (Boston Review, 2016)
from “Notes for an Opening,” Bettering American Poetry (2016)
“The Years,” Guernica Anthology, Vol 2 (2015)
Individual poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, New York Review of Books, Poetry, Granta, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Triple Canopy, Academy of American Poets Poem-A Day, Literary Hub, Bennington Review, Narrative Magazine, Guernica, jubilat, PEN Poetry Series, Asian American Writer's Workshop The Margins, LIT, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere.
Performances and Appearances
Selected Public Events 2013-2022
The 47th Annual Poetry Project New Year's Day Marathon Reading, New York NY
The Brooklyn Rail, New York NY
The Program for Poets & Writers at UMass-Amherst, Amherst MA
University of Louisville Creative Writing Program, Louisville KY
Bushel Collective, Delhi NY
Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia PA
Segue Reading Series, New York NY
Think!Chinatown, New York NY
Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis MO
Clemson Literary Festival, Clemson SC
Bard Graduate Center, New York NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York NY
Visiting Poets Series at Keystone College, La Plume PA
NYU Lillian Vernon House, New York NY
The Poetry Project, New York NY
Princeton University Creative Writing Program, Princeton NJ
Irish Arts Center, New York NY
Visiting Writers Series at Elms College, Chicopee MA
KGB Monday Night Reading Series, New York NY
Asian American Writers Workshop, New York NY
Poetry Society of America, New York NY
Miami Bookfair International, Miami Dade College FL
Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn NY
Emory University, Atlanta GA
AWP Writers Conference, Seattle WA
The Best American Poetry Anthology Reading, New York NY
Panels and Exhibitions
“Provisions: Poems Held Close” (Panel) with Claire Schwartz, Kaveh Akbar, Chase Berggrun
Jewish Currents Magazine (2021)
“Ready-Set-Go: Writes on Beginning” Panel with Melissa Febos and Wendy S. Walters
Columbia University School of the Arts, MFA Creative Writing Program (2020)
Poetry Editors Publishing Panel
Asian American Writers Workshop, Margins Fellowship Mentor Program (2019)
"Open Pedagogies: Teaching Poetry Through Art Inside and Outside of the Workshop"
AWP 2018 Juried Conference Panel (2018)
“Writers in New York,” Publishing Panel
NYU Undergraduate Creative Writing Program (2017)
“The Ecstasy of Time,” He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
(commissioned poem, installation, and movement performance)
Collaboration with Choreographer Alvin Tran, curated by Yuan Fuca (2017)
Research Interests
Poetry writing; 20th century and contemporary poetry; documentary poetics; Asian-American literature; poetry and literature of war; ekphrastic poetry; creative nonfiction and the lyric essay
Awards And Honors
The Past, Best Books of 2021, The Boston Globe (2021)
Phrasis, 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017, New York Times Book Review (2017)
Phrasis, Fence Books Ottoline Prize (2017)
Harman Writer-in-Residence Workshop Fellow, Baruch College CUNY (2017)
Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in Poetry (2014)
You Are Not Dead, 10 Best Poetry Debuts, Poets & Writers Magazine (2013)
Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry (2011)