Bruce Beasley

Bruce Beasley is the author of nine collections of poems, capturing the intricate crosscurrents of religion, molecular biology, cosmology, and Gnosticism.

Growing up in Macon, Georgia, Beasley's poetry is deeply anchored in both the Southern physical landscapes—dogwoods, red clay, dogwood petals falling like grace—and a rigorous, intellectual questing for spiritual order. His work operates in a rich lineage of devotional poetry, reinventing the traditions of John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and T.S. Eliot.

He is an Emeritus Professor of English at Western Washington University, and was the 2013 recipient of the university’s Peter J. Elich Excellence in Teaching Award. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Artist Trust of Washington, along with three Pushcart Prizes.

He currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife—poet, novelist, and essayist Suzanne Paola—and their son, Jin.