Adrian Blevins (born 1964 in Abingdon, Virginia, United States)[1] is an American poet. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Appalachians Run Amok, winner of the 2016 Wilder Prize (Two Sylvias Press, 2018). Her other full-length poetry collections are Status Pending (Four Way Books, 2023), Live from the Homesick Jamboree (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) and The Brass Girl Brouhaha (Ausable Press, now Copper Canyon Press, 2003).[2] With Karen McElmurray, Blevins co-edited Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia (Ohio University Press, 2015), a collection of essays of new and emerging Appalachian poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers.[3] Her chapbooks are Bloodline (Hollyridge Press, 2012) [4] and The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes, which won the first of Bright Hill Press's chapbook contests. (Bright Hill Press, 1996).[5]

Adrian Blevins
Born1964 (age 59–60)
Education
Occupation(s)Poet; Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Program at Colby College

Blevins won a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in 2002.[6] Other prizes include the Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction from the Chattahoochee Review, a Pushcart Prize for "Tally" from Appalachians Run Amok, and other magazine prizes from Ploughshares and Zone 3. She was a Walter Daken Poetry Fellow at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 2008 and a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2017.

Life

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Adrian Blevins was born in Abingdon, Virginia to a family of artists, including her grandfather (Banner Blevins who was a painter, sculptor, and cabinetmaker), her father (Tedd Blevins, who was a Virginia Intermont College art professor and painter), her stepfather (Jake Cress, who is a cabinetmaker), and her stepmother (Carole Blevins who is a painter).[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Blevins graduated with a BA from Virginia Intermont College, a MA in fiction from Hollins University, and a MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2002. She went on to teach at Roanoke College, Hollins University, Sweet Briar College, and at Lynchburg College as the Thornton Wilder Fellow. She currently teaches at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and lives in East Winthrop, Maine.[15][16][1]

Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Baffler, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, The Greensboro Review, The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. They have been reprinted in The Open Door One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of "Poetry" Magazine; Seriously Funny: Poems about Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else; From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great.[17][18][19]

Awards

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Bibliography

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Poetry

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Collections
  • The Brass Girl Brouhaha (Ausable Press, 2003), ISBN 978-1-931337-10-6
  • Live from the Homesick Jamboree (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)
  • Appalachians Run Amok (Two Sylvias Press, 2018)
  • Status Pending (Four Way, 2023)
Chapbooks
  • The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes (Bright Hill Press, 1997), ISBN 978-0-9646844-2-3
  • Bloodline (Hollyridge Press, 2012)
List of poems
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
Tally 2011 Blevins, Adrian (Fall 2011). "Tally". The Georgia Review. Blevins, Adrian (2013). "Tally". In Henderson, Bill (ed.). The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013. Pushcart Press. p. 577.
Dear New Mothers of America 2009 [1]Blevins, Adrian (March 2009). "Dear New Mothers of America". American Poetry Review.

Nonfiction

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Critical studies and reviews of Blevins' work

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References

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  1. ^ a b Ausable Press > Author Page > Adrian Blevins Archived February 20, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ https://www.adrianblevins.com/ [bare URL]
  3. ^ "Library of Congress Online Catalog". Catalog.loc.gov. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  4. ^ "The Chapbook Series". Hollyridgepress.com. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  5. ^ "The Man who went out for Cigarettes". Brighthillpress.org. 1 January 1996. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  6. ^ "The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards". Ronajaffefoundation.org. Archived from the original on 31 August 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  7. ^ Self-Made Worlds. Booktopia.com.au. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  8. ^ "Booktopia - Google". Plus.google.com. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  9. ^ Crown, Carol; Russell, Charles (29 January 2018). Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-taught Art. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578069163. Retrieved 29 January 2018 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Bahr, Jeff; Taylor, Troy; Coleman, Loren (29 January 2018). Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 9781402739422. Retrieved 29 January 2018 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ "In Memoriam: Artist, Art Professor Tedd Blevins - A! Magazine for the Arts". Artsmagazine.info. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  12. ^ "Meet Adrian".
  13. ^ "Carole Farris Blevins - painter". Carolefarrisblevins.com. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  14. ^ "Custom furniture, handmade, studio and animated". Jakecress.com. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  15. ^ "Meet Adrian".
  16. ^ "Adrian Blevins · College Directory". Colby.edu. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  17. ^ The Open Door. Press.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  18. ^ "UGA Press View Book". Ugapress.org. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  19. ^ "Persea Books ~ Our Books ~ From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great". Perseabooks.com. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  20. ^ "Adrian Blevins".