Leslie McGrath


Leslie McGrath is an American poet, editor, and educator. She is the author of the collection Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, which was a finalist for the 2010 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry; the chapbooks Toward Anguish, which won the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award, and By the Windpipe ; and the satiric novella in verse, Out From the Pleiades. Her most recent publication is a full-length collection of poetry Feminists Are Passing from Our Lives. McGrath co-edited Reetika Vazirani's posthumous poetry collection, Radha Says: Last
Poems Drunken Boat Books, 2010). She has taught creative writing as an adjunct professor at Central Connecticut State University since 2009.

Recognition

In addition to the honors noted above, McGrath was awarded the University of Tulsa's 2004 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, a 2007 Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, a 2010 grant from the Greater Hartford Arts Council, residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Hedgebrook, and the 2017 Gretchen Warren Award from The New England Poetry Club.
Her literary interviews have been published in Association of Writers & Writing Programs's official magazine, The Writer's Chronicle. An interview with McGrath about her work appears in The Nervous Breakdown. McGrath serves on the advisory board for The Word Works, a literary press in Washington, D.C., which sponsors The Washington Prize. She is also the series editor for the Word Works' Tenth Gate Series, an imprint inspired by poet Jane Hirshfield, which recognizes the work of mid-career poets.
McGrath serves on the Poetry Advisory Committee of Sunken Garden Poetry Series at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, and formerly served on the board of The James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut.