Adrian Blevins

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{{Infobox person

| name = Adrian Blevins

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1964}}

| birth_place = Abingdon, Virginia

| occupation = Poet; Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Program at Colby College

| known_for =

| notable_works =

| education = {{Unbulleted list|Virginia Intermont College {{Small|(B.A.)}} |Hollins University {{Small|(M.A.)}} |Warren Wilson College {{Small|(M.F.A.)}} }}

}}

Adrian Blevins (born 1964 in Abingdon, Virginia, United States){{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070220120334/http://www.ausablepress.org/c_blevins_a.html Ausable Press > Author Page > Adrian Blevins]}} is an American poet. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Appalachians Run Amok, winner of the 2016 Wilder Prize (Two Sylvias Press, 2018). Her other full-length poetry collections are Status Pending (Four Way Books, 2023), Live from the Homesick Jamboree (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) and The Brass Girl Brouhaha (Ausable Press, now Copper Canyon Press, 2003).{{Cite web |title=HOME |url=https://www.adrianblevins.com/ |access-date=2024-12-27 |website=Adrian Blevins |language=en}} With Karen McElmurray, Blevins co-edited Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia (Ohio University Press, 2015), a collection of essays of new and emerging Appalachian poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers.{{cite web|url=http://catalog.loc.gov/|title=Library of Congress Online Catalog|website=Catalog.loc.gov|access-date=29 January 2018}} Her chapbooks are Bloodline (Hollyridge Press, 2012) {{cite web|url=https://www.hollyridgepress.com/chapseries.htm|title=The Chapbook Series|website=Hollyridgepress.com|access-date=29 January 2018}} and The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes, which won the first of Bright Hill Press's chapbook contests. (Bright Hill Press, 1996).{{cite web|url=http://brighthillpress.org/product/the-man-who-went-out-for-cigarettes/|title=The Man who went out for Cigarettes|date=1 January 1996|website=Brighthillpress.org|access-date=29 January 2018}}

Blevins won a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in 2002.{{cite web|url=http://www.ronajaffefoundation.org/past_recipients.html|title=The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards|website=Ronajaffefoundation.org|access-date=29 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831015311/http://www.ronajaffefoundation.org/past_recipients.html|archive-date=31 August 2018|url-status=dead}} Other prizes include the Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction from the Chattahoochee Review, a Pushcart Prize for "Tally" from Appalachians Run Amok, and other magazine prizes from Ploughshares and Zone 3. She was a Walter Daken Poetry Fellow at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 2008 and a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2017.

Life

Adrian Blevins was born in Abingdon, Virginia to a family of artists, including her grandfather (Banner Blevins who was a painter, sculptor, and cabinetmaker), her father (Tedd Blevins, who was a Virginia Intermont College art professor and painter), her stepfather (Jake Cress, who is a cabinetmaker), and her stepmother (Carole Blevins who is a painter).{{cite book|url=https://www.booktopia.com.au/self-made-worlds-r-manley/prod9780893817329.html|title=Self-Made Worlds|publisher=Booktopia.com.au|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite web|url=https://plus.google.com/106713970584830357903|title=Booktopia - Google|website=Plus.google.com|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bKkFAEG8A8kC&q=Banner+Blevins+outsider+art&pg=PA23|title=Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-taught Art|first1=Carol|last1=Crown|first2=Charles|last2=Russell|date=29 January 2018|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9781578069163|access-date=29 January 2018|via=Google Books}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gMWL8AJRdYMC&q=Banner+Blevins+weird+virginia&pg=PA136|title=Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets|first1=Jeff|last1=Bahr|first2=Troy|last2=Taylor|first3=Loren|last3=Coleman|date=29 January 2018|publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.|isbn=9781402739422|access-date=29 January 2018|via=Google Books}}{{cite web|url=http://www.artsmagazine.info/articles.php?view=detail&id=2008012719233484994|title=In Memoriam: Artist, Art Professor Tedd Blevins - A! Magazine for the Arts|website=Artsmagazine.info|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite web | url=https://www.adrianblevins.com/meet-adrian | title=Meet Adrian }}{{cite web|url=http://carolefarrisblevins.com/|title=Carole Farris Blevins - painter|website=Carolefarrisblevins.com|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite web|url=https://www.jakecress.com/|title=Custom furniture, handmade, studio and animated|website=Jakecress.com|access-date=29 January 2018}}

Blevins graduated with a BA from Virginia Intermont College, a MA in fiction from Hollins University, and a MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2002.

She went on to teach at Roanoke College, Hollins University, Sweet Briar College, and at Lynchburg College as the Thornton Wilder Fellow. She currently teaches at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and lives in East Winthrop, Maine.{{cite web | url=https://www.adrianblevins.com/meet-adrian | title=Meet Adrian }}{{cite web|url=http://www.colby.edu/profile/ablevins/|title=Adrian Blevins · College Directory|website=Colby.edu|access-date=29 January 2018}}

Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Baffler, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, The Greensboro Review, The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. They have been reprinted in The Open Door One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of "Poetry" Magazine; Seriously Funny: Poems about Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else; From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great.{{cite book|url=http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo13919067.html|title=The Open Door|publisher=Press.uchicago.edu|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite web|url=http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/seriously_funny/1/0|title=UGA Press View Book|website=Ugapress.org|access-date=29 January 2018}}{{cite web|url=http://www.perseabooks.com/detail.php?bookID=47|title=Persea Books ~ Our Books ~ From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great|website=Perseabooks.com|access-date=29 January 2018}}

Awards

2024 Maine Literary Awards (Book Award for Poetry) for Status Pending{{Cite web |date=2024-05-31 |title=2024 Winners |url=https://www.mainewriters.org/events/2024-winners |access-date=2025-05-27 |website=Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance |language=en-US}}
2018 Wilder Prize, Two Sylvias Press{{Cite web|url=http://twosylviaspress.com/adrian-blevins.html|title = Adrian Blevins}}
2013 Pushcart Prize, Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses.
2012 Zone 3 Poetry Award.
2010 Ploughshares Cohen Award for "The Waning."
2007 Walter E. Daken Fellowship, Sewanee Writers' Conference
2004 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for The Brass Girl Brouhaha
2002 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award
2000 Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction from The Chattahoochee Review
1996 Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award for The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes, which was reprinted in 1997

Bibliography

= Poetry =

;Collections

The Brass Girl Brouhaha (Ausable Press, 2003), ISBN 978-1-931337-10-6
Live from the Homesick Jamboree (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)
Appalachians Run Amok (Two Sylvias Press, 2018)
Status Pending (Four Way, 2023)

;Chapbooks

The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes (Bright Hill Press, 1997), ISBN 978-0-9646844-2-3
Bloodline (Hollyridge Press, 2012)

;List of poems

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'
width=25%\|Title !\|Year !\|First published !\|Reprinted/collected
Tally \|2011 \|{{cite journal \|author=Blevins, Adrian \|date=Fall 2011 \|title=Tally \|journal=The Georgia Review }} \|{{cite book \|author=Blevins, Adrian \|editor=Henderson, Bill \|title=The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013 \|publisher=Pushcart Press \|date=2013 \|pages=577 \|chapter=Tally}}
Dear New Mothers of America \|2009 \|[https://web.archive.org/web/20091212215650/http://www.aprweb.org/poem/dear-new-mothers-america]{{cite journal \|author=Blevins, Adrian \|date=March 2009\|title=Dear New Mothers of America \|journal=American Poetry Review }} \|

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'

width=25%|Title

!|Year

!|First published

!|Reprinted/collected

Tally

|2011

|{{cite journal |author=Blevins, Adrian |date=Fall 2011 |title=Tally |journal=The Georgia Review }}

|{{cite book |author=Blevins, Adrian |editor=Henderson, Bill |title=The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013 |publisher=Pushcart Press |date=2013 |pages=577 |chapter=Tally}}

Dear New Mothers of America

|2009

|[https://web.archive.org/web/20091212215650/http://www.aprweb.org/poem/dear-new-mothers-america]{{cite journal |author=Blevins, Adrian |date=March 2009|title=Dear New Mothers of America |journal=American Poetry Review }}

[http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/status-report "Status Report", poets.org]
[http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/memo "Memo", poets.org]
[http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dear-mothers-america "Dear Mothers of America", poets.org]
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52205/the-way-she-figured-he-figured-it "The Way She Figured He Figured It", poets.org]
[http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/hey-you "Hey You", poets.org]
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182250 "How to Cook a Wolf", Poetry, October 2008]
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175623 "Novelette", Poetry, October 2005]
[http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/blevins.html "For My Students"; "Life History", The Drunken Boat]
[http://mainepublic.org/programs/poems-here-maine-poet-laureate-stuart-kestenbaum?page=2#stream/0 "Love Poem for the Proles" on Poems from Here with Stuart Kestenbaum]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090105184447/http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/adrian_blevins/why_the_marriage_failed.shtml Audio: From the Fishouse > Adrian Blevins Reading Why the Marriage Failed]
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175623 Poem: The Poetry Foundation > from Poetry, October 2005 > Novelette by Adrian Blevins]

= Nonfiction =

Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean (Ohio University Press, 2015)
[http://www.taosjournalofpoetry.com/how-narrative-saved-me/ "How Narrative Saved Me"]
[https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/04/25/adrian-blevins-nouns-in-their-habitats/ "Nouns in Their Habitats"]
[https://www.colby.edu/magazine/educating-by-poetry/ "Educating by Poetry"]
[https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/03/27/adrian-blevins-of-madmen-and-spies/ "Of Madmen and Spies"]
[https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/04/03/adrian-blevins-portrait-of-nigel/ "Of Madmen and Spies", cont.]
[https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/04/09/adrian-blevins-my-mothers-first-husband/ "Of Madmen and Spies", cont.]
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178017 "In Praise of the Sentence", Poetry Foundation]

=Critical studies and reviews of Blevins' work=

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69524/let-fly-the-splendor "Let Fly the Splendor"], by Abigail Deutsch, Poetry Magazine

References

Category:Living people

Category:Poets from Virginia

Category:Writers from Maine

Category:Virginia Intermont College alumni

Category:Hollins University alumni

Category:Warren Wilson College alumni

Category:Colby College faculty

Category:Roanoke College faculty

Category:1964 births

Category:People from Abingdon, Virginia

Category:People from Waterville, Maine

Category:Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award winners

Category:21st-century American poets