Long Bio
Toi Derricotte is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently, I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), a 2019 National Book Awards Finalist about which Ross Gay writes:
“No writer I know of explores with more honesty the sorrows and wonders and joys and shames and tenderness of being alive. No writer is more tender. And no poems I know of make me feel witnessed, held, beheld, the way Derricotte’s do. Her poems behold us. I am so grateful for these poems. I am so grateful for Derricotte’s beautiful heart.”
Derricotte is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ 2021 Wallace Stevens Award, given to recognize outstanding artistic achievement in the art of poetry over a poet’s career. The Poetry Society of America awarded her the 2020 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, citing, “There are few poets who are as brave as Toi Derricotte; brave in her subject matter and brave in how she insists that even the deepest hurts must sing on the page.”
Recognized as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania, Derricotte’s honors include the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement; the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry for a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work represents a notable presence in American literature; the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America; the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize for Tender; and the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction for her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been awarded three Pushcart Prizes; the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists; the Alumni/Alumnae Award from New York University; the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, Inc.; the Elizabeth Kray Award from Poets House for service to the field of poetry; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Maryland State Arts Council.
More than one-thousand of Derricotte’s poems have been published in magazines and journals, including American Poetry Review, Callaloo, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. Her essay “Beds” can be found in The Best American Essays 2011, edited by Edwidge Danticat; her “Beginning Dialogues” appears in The Best American Essays 2006, edited by Lauren Slater; and her poems have twice appeared in The Best American Poetry. With Cornelius Eady, in 1996, she co-founded Cave Canem Foundation, the nation’s premier “home for Black poetry” and recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2016 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, Derricotte served on the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors, 2012-2017; and currently serves on Cave Canem’s Board of Directors and Marsh Hawk Press’s Artistic Advisory Board.
Brief Bio
Recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ 2021 Wallace Stevens Award and the Poetry Society’s 2020 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, Toi Derricotte is the author of 2019 National Book Awards Finalist I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), The Undertaker’s Daughter (2011), and four earlier collections of poetry, including Tender, winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her honors include, among many others, the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement, the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, three Pushcart Prizes, and the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists. Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, Derricotte co-founded Cave Canem Foundation (with Cornelius Eady) in 1996; served on the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors, 2012-2017; and currently serves on Cave Canem’s Board of Directors and Marsh Hawk Press’s Artistic Advisory Board.