Erica Dawson

Instructor

Erica Dawson is the author of three books of poetry: When Rap Spoke Straight to God, winner of the 2018 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Poetry; The Small Blades Hurt, winner of the 2016 Poets’ Prize; and, Big-Eyed Afraid, winner of the 2006 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Orion, Revel, The Believer, The Common, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. A Pushcart Prize winner, her work has been widely anthologized, including in Best American Poetry (2008, 2012, and 2015), Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poets Now, and American Society: What Poets See. Her essays and criticism have been published by The Paris Review’s “The Daily,” The Rumpus, Ecotone, and other venues. She has been featured on PBS Newshour and in The New York Times Magazine. She lives in the Baltimore-DC area.