Carolyn Creedon

B. 1969
Image of Carolyn Creedon
Poet and editor Carolyn Creedon was born in Newport News. She earned a BA from Smith College, where she won the Glascock Prize, an MA from Washington University, and an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she won the Academy of American Poets Prize.
 
Creedon’s free verse poems explore our experiences of suffering and longing within an expansive, and at times sacred, field. In her author’s statement for The Best of the Best American Poetry, Creedon notes that she likes words “at least as much for their rich gushes and droughts, their sounds, as for their meaning.”
 
Creedon’s debut collection, Wet (2012), was chosen for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize by Edward Hirsch. Her work has also been featured in the anthologies Best New Poets (2009, edited by Kim Addonizio), You Drive Me Crazy: Love Poems for Real Life (2005, edited by Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Vélez), and The Best of the Best American Poetry: 1988-1997 (1998, edited by Harold Bloom). Creedon has also won the Alehouse Happy Hour Poetry Prize.
 
Creedon lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.