William Olsen

William Olsen is the author of three collections of poetry, The Hand of God and a Few Bright Flowers (Illinois, 1988), Vision of a Storm Cloud (TriQuarterly, 1996), and Trouble Lights (TriQuarterly, 2002). The Hand Of God and a Few Bright Flowers was reissued as part of the Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary Series in 2003. He is co-editor, with Sharon Bryan, of Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life. Olsen was the recipient of a NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, and poetry awards from Poetry Northwest and Crazyhorse. His poems and essays have appeared in The New Republic, Chicago Review, Paris Review, Southern Review, New American Poets Of The Nineties, The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Poets Of The New Century (Godine, 2001), and many other magazines and anthologies. He teaches at Western Michigan University and in the MFA Program at Vermont College.

Read "The Spirit Behind the Letter" by Lisa Simon, a Poetry Santa Cruz interview with William Olsen and Nancy Eimers.