Elise Paschen

Who is Elise Paschen?

Elise Paschen, a poet and enrolled member of the Osage Nation, was the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. The daughter of renowned prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief, and Chicago contractor Henry D. Paschen, she was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended the Francis W. Parker School. A graduate of Harvard University, she holds M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in 20th Century British and American Literature from Oxford University.

Her book of poetry include, most recently, Bestiary as well as Houses: Coasts and Infidelities, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Ploughshares and Shenandoah.

Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America from 1988 until 2001, she has edited numerous anthologies, including the New York Times bestsellers Poetry Speaks and Poetry Speaks Who I Am. She was the featured Illinois poet at the National Book Festival in September 2006 and is the former Poet Laureate of Three Oaks, Michigan. Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.