Eleanor Wilner

Eleanor Wilner is a poet, editor, and educator. Her poetry embraces a wide range of concerns, including politics, history, cultural memory, and myth. Her many works of poetry include Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2017, Tourist in Hell, The Girl with Bees in Her Hair, as well as a book on visionary imagination and social change, Gathering the Winds. Wilner has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Frost Medal for lifetime achievement from the Poetry Society of America, fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Juniper Prize, and three Pushcart Prizes.

Formerly an editor of The American Poetry Review, Wilner is currently an advisory editor of Calyx. She has taught at many colleges and universities, most recently University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Smith College. She is currently on the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.