Background
Joshua Poteat got his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 1993 and received his Master of Fine Arts in writing at Virginia Commonwealth University in May 1997.[1][dead link]
Poteat has published three books of poems, The Regret Histories (National Poetry Series, Harper Perennial, 2015), Illustrating the Machine That Makes the World (VQR/University of Georgia Press, 2009), and Ornithologies (Anhinga Poetry Prize, 2006), as well three chapbooks, The Scenery of Farewell (Diode Editions, 2014), For the Animal (Diagram/New Michigan Press, 2013), and Meditations (Poetry Society of America, 2004).
Over the years, he has won prizes and fellowships from American Literary Review, Bellingham Review, Columbia, Hunger Mountain, Marlboro Review, Nebraska Review, River City, Vermont Studio Center, The Millay Colony, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, and others.
In 2015, he was awarded the final Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry, which was a $10,000 annual prize that recognized significant contribution to the art of poetry given to a poet with strong connections to the Commonwealth of Virginia.
He has published widely in places such as Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Blackbird, Indiana Review, Quarterly West, American Letters & Commentary, Crazyhorse, Gulfcoast, Ninth Letter, Greensboro Review, Copper Nickel, Typo, LIT, Bat City Review, Diagram, StorySouth, Pilot Light, and many others.
His work has been anthologized in collections such as Between Water and Song: New Poets for the Twenty-First Century (Editor Norman Minnick, White Pine Press, 2010), The Poets Guide to the Birds (Eds. T. Kooser and J. Kitchen, Anhinga Press, 2009), Diagram Print Anthology, (Ander Monson, Editor, New Michigan Press, 2006), and Pivot Points: 2003-2006, an international traveling exhibition and monograph that featured three generations of painters and poets.
He has been a Visiting Writer at Virginia Commonwealth University, and from 2011-2012, was the Donaldson Writer in Residence at The College of William & Mary.
Joshua is also an artist, making light boxes and ink transfer/mixed media collages out of found materials that are included in numerous private collections. In collaboration with the designer Roberto Ventura, he created light- and text-based installations that appeared in shows at Randolph Macon College’s Flippo Gallery, 1708 Gallery, and for Richmond, Virginia’s InLight, which won Best in Show, 2009, chosen by Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Originally from Hampstead, North Carolina, Joshua lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he is a copy editor/proofreader at The Martin Agency.[2]
Reviews
Melanie Drane, at ForeWord Magazine, stated in May 2006: "Joshua Poteat's stunning début has received the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, selected by Campbell McGrath. Poteat's poems are suffused with the cognizance that 'nothing in this world is ours.' Each image teeters on an unsustainable, exquisite edge."[3]
Mary Oliver, a judge for the 2004 Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Award, stated that: "It is a lyricism that reminds me of James Wright, and this I mean certainly as praise, when he employed, as I called it, an intensified vernacular—throwing me off my stride, gathering me to him by the detail of some earnest and often terrible beauty, in the easy language of our country with its sweet, oiled syntax…" [4]
Darren Morris a book reviewer for Style Weekly said in 2006 that: "Be careful when reading Ornithologies by Joshua Poteat. His poems are so mysterious, eloquent and downright powerful, they may ruin you with beauty. Good poetry calls attention to what would otherwise be overlooked, but the best poetry changes us."[5]
