MA: USA

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic, has lived in the U. S. since the age of 7, and taught high school English in NYC for several years. She writes poetry and prose both in English and in her native Spanish. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, including "Poetry," "Sparrow," "The Formalist" and "The American Scholar," as well as in some two dozen anthologies,ÊincludingÊAn Introduc-tion to Poetry (Longman, Ê2001) edited by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, and The Beacon Best of 2001 (Beacon, 2001) edited by Junot Diaz, A Formal Feeling Comes (Story Line Press, 1994) In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the United States (Arte Publico Press, 1994), and Landscapes with Women: Four American Poets (Singular Speedh Press, 1999.ÊShe is a frequent reader and speaker in the Boston area, and conducts workshops at colleges and universities out of state as well, includingÊthe West Chester University Poetry Conference.

Espaillat has fourÊpoetry collections in print: Lapsing to Grace (Bennett & Kitchel, 1992); Where Horizons Go (Truman State University Press, 1998) whichÊwon the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize;Ê"Mundo y Palabra/The World and the Word," a bilingual chapbook (Oyster River Press, 2001); andÊRehearsing Absence, (University of Evansville Press, 2001), which won the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award. She also won the 1998 Howard Nemerov Award, the "Sparrow" Sonnet Prize for 1997, three yearly prizes from the Poetry Society of America, including the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award in the year 2000, and the 2001 Der-Hovanessian Translation Prize from the New England Poetry Club, among other awards.

Espaillat lives in Newburyport, MA, with her sculptor husband, Alfred Moskowitz. She coordinates the Newburyport Art Association's Annual Poetry Contest, directs the Powow River Poets and organizes that group's monthly reading series.One of her recent community efforts has led to a cultural collaboration with a group of Spanish-language poets, Tertulia Pedro Mir, centered in the neighboring and heavily Hispanic city of Lawrence.

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