Dara Wier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dara Wier (born 1949) is an American poet who has received literary awards including the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize (2001) and the Pushcart Prize (2002). She has also received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation (1992), the National Endowment for the Arts (1980), and the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2000).
Wier has taught poetry writing workshops at Hollins University, the University of Alabama, Emory University, Baylor University, the University of Idaho, the University of Texas, the University of Utah and Bennington College. She currently serves as the director of the prestigious MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she is on the poetry faculty with James Tate and Peter Gizzi, as well as visiting poet and fiction writer Brad Leithauser. She also co-directs (with Noy Holland and Lisa Olstein) the University of Massachusetts' Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action.
[edit] Early years and Education
Wier was born in Hotel Dieu in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised by her grandparents, Euphrasie Zeolide Barrois and Gerard Hippolyte Barrois, in Naomi, Louisiana, in Plaquemines Parish. She was educated at Catholic schools in Algiers and Gretna until her parents, Grace Barrois Dixon and Arthur Joseph Dixon moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she was schooled at St. Aloysius, and then St. Joseph's. She then attended Louisiana State University, believing journalism is what a writer does to support his/herself in the meantime. Wier received her MFA degree in poetry from Bowling Green University in 1974.
[edit] Books
- Blood, Hook & Eye, University of Texas Press, 1977, 1980 ISBN 0-292-70720-7
- The 8-Step Grapevine, CMU Press, 1980 ISBN 0-915604-38-8
- All You Have in Common, CMU, 1984 ISBN 0-88748-005-5
- The Book of Knowledge, CMU, 1987 ISBN 0-88748-067-5
- Blue for the Plough, CMU, 1990 ISBN 0-88748-137-X
- Our Master Plan, CMU, 1999 ISBN 0-88748-294-5
- Voyages in English, CMU, 2001 ISBN 0-88748-351-8
- Hat on a Pond, Wave Books, 2001 ISBN 0-9703672-6-0
- Reverse Rapture, Wave Books, 2005 ISBN 0-9746353-4-0
- Remnants of Hannah, Wave Books, 2006 ISBN 1-933517-08-5
Dara Wier's work has been included in recent volumes of Best American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. It has also appeared in Verse, jubilat, The Massachusetts Review and other publications.
