Cleopatra Mathis

Cleopatra Mathis, born and raised in Ruston, Louisiana, is of Greek and Cherokee descent. She is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Book of Dog (2013), White Sea (2005; rpt., 2011), and What to Tip the Boatman? (2001), all published by Sarabande Books, and Aerial View of Louisiana (1979), The Bottom Land (1983), The Center for Cold Weather (1989), and Guardian (1995), all published by Sheep Meadow Press.

Cleopatra Mathis’ work has appeared widely in anthologies, textbooks, magazines, and journals, including The Best American Poetry 2009, New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, Three Penny Review, Tri-Quarterly, Southern Review, Georgia Review, The Made Thing: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry, The Extraordinary Tide: Poetry by American Women, and The Practice of Poetry. Various prizes for her work include two National Endowment for the Arts grants, in 1984 and 2003; the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poems in 2001 for What to Tip the Boatman?; the Peter Lavin Award for Younger Poets from the Academy of American Poets; two Pushcart Prizes: 1980 and 2006; The Robert Frost Resident Poet Award; a Fellowship in Poetry at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts; The May Sarton Award; and four Individual Artist Fellowships in Poetry from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the New Jersey State Arts Council.

Cleopatra Mathis is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor of the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College, where she founded the creative writing program in 1982.