Monica Youn

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Monica Youn is the author of four poetry collections, most recently From From (Graywolf Press 2023), which was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN Voelcker Award, and was longlisted for the PEN Jean Stein Award. From From was a New York Times Notable Book and Best Poetry Book of 2023 as well as being named a best book of the year by Time Magazine, NPR, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Her previous book, Blackacre, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award and the PEN Open Book Award, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was named a best poetry book of 2016 by the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Paris Review. Her book Ignatz was also a finalist for the National Book Award.

Youn has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship. A former constitutional lawyer, she is a member of the curatorial collective the Racial Imaginary Institute and is professor of English at UC Irvine.

“The nexus factor: Examining the African American experience” | Princeton University News

Blackacare by Monica Youn named National Book Critics Circle finalist for Poetry | New York Times

Blackacre by Monica Youn named PEN / Open Book Award finalist | PEN America

“Announcing the 2017 William Carlos Williams Award Winner, Monica Youn’s Blackacre” | PoetrySociety

“Four Princeton faculty members win Guggenheim Fellowships” | Princeton University News

2018 Guggenheim Fellowship Award Announcement | Guggenheim Foundation

“The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness” | Symposium — June 30; Exhibition + Residency — June 27-August 3, 2018

Monica Youn awarded 2019 Salmon O. Levinson Prize for her poem, “Study of Two Figures (Pasiphaë/Sado)” | Poetry Foundation, Sept. 2019

“The power language of Monica Youn” | The Big Bend Sentinel, Jan. 22, 2020

“To Claim What Has Tried to Claim Me: A Roundtable on Asian-American Poetics” — Kevin Young in conversation with Monica Youn, Kimiko Hahn, Paul Tran, and Megan Fernandes | New Yorker Poetry podcast, May 5, 2021

New York Times Book Review: From From | March 7, 2023

Listen to the Podcast: Between the Covers — Monica Youn on From From | Tin House, March 2023

Monica Youn Interview by Dorothy Wang | Bomb Magazine, February 2023