Sheila Black


Sheila Black, an American poet, has written over 40 books for children and young adults as well as four poetry collections. She was a 2000: U.S. co-winner of the Frost-Pellicer Frontera Prize, and a 2012 Witter Bynner Fellowship.

Life

She graduated from Barnard College and received her master's degree from the University of Montana.
. Teaching part-time at New Mexico State University and also working as Development Director for the Colonias Development Council, Sheila Black continues to write poetry, recently becoming co-editor of Beauty Is A Verb: The New Poetry of Disability with Jennifer Bartlett and Mike Northen. Sheila Black was diagnosed with XLH, commonly referred to as Vitamin-D Resistant Rickets, at a young age. Black continues to advocate for equal rights for persons with disabilities. She has three children, a 25-year-old daughter, a 19-year-old son, and a 17-year-old daughter. She lives with her younger daughter and husband in Texas.

Style

Confessional poetry

In her poems, Sheila Black writes in a confessional style, often referencing past conflicts that resulted from her diagnosis of XLH, such as in her poem What You Mourn. According to Sheila Black,
“As a poet, a storyteller, I am attracted to the unruly and confrontational elements of the confessional, to the ways it complicates personal truth through a presentation that makes the audience continually question whether the speaker is to be trusted”

Reviews

;Poetry collections:
;Poetry collections, collaborative:
;Poetry collections, co-editor:
;Children's books: