Diann Blakely

Who is Diann Blakely?

Diann Blakely is an American poet, essayist, and reviewer. Graduating with a B.A. in art history from the University of the South in 1979, she subsequently received an M.A. in literature from Vanderbilt University in 1980 and an M.F.A. from Vermont College in 1989. She has taught at Belmont University, Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, led workshops at two Vermont College residencies, and served as senior instructor and the first poet-in-residence at the Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee. A Robert Frost Fellow at Bread Loaf, she was a Dakin Williams Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, at which she had worked earlier as founding coordinator.

Her first volume of poetry, Hurricane Walk, was published under the name Diann Blakely Shoaf in 1992 and included among the St. Louis Post Dispatch's ten best verse collections of the year. Her second book, Farewell, My Lovelies, published in 2000 and influenced by "noir" shading, was listed as a Choice of the Academy of American Poets' Book Club. Her third volume, Cities of Flesh and the Dead, won Elixir Press's 7th annual publication prize after being distinguished by the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, given for a year's best manuscript-in-progress. Anthologized in several volumes, including Best American Poetry 2003 and Pushcart Prize Anthologies XIX and XX, Blakely is currently at work on a new manuscript entitled Rain in Our Door: Duets with Robert Johnson.