Brigit
Pegeen Kelly has published three books of poetry: To the Place of
Trumpets (Yale University Press, 1988), selected by James
Merrill for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, Song
(BOA Editions, Ltd., 1995), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize
from the Academy of American Poets and The Orchard, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times
Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
Kelly has been awarded a "Discovery" / The Nation award, the
Witter Bynner Prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters, the
Cecil Hemley Award from the Poetry Society of America, the 2008 Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and fellowships
from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts,
the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Illinois Arts
Council.
Her work has appeared in many anthologies and literary
magazines, including The Nation, The Yale Review,
New England Review, Poetry, The Antioch
Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Southern
Review, five Pushcart Prize volumes, and six volumes
of The Best American Poetry. A professor of English at the University of Illinois, Kelly has also taught
at the University of California at Irvine, Purdue University,
Warren Wilson College, and numerous writers' conferences. In 2002
the University of Illinois awarded her both humanities and campus-wide
awards for excellence in teaching.
