Marcus Wicker
Photo by Kristyn Greenfield
Bio
Marcus Wicker is the author of Silencer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017)—winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award—and Maybe the Saddest Thing (Harper Perennial, 2012), selected by D.A. Powell for the National Poetry Series. He is the recipient of a Tennessee Arts Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, as well as fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Cave Canem. Wicker’s poems have appeared in the Nation, the New Republic, the Atlantic, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He is poetry editor of Southern Indiana Review, and an associate professor of English at the University of Memphis where he teaches in the MFA program.
In the face of our new reality in 2020, like most people, I have had a difficult time remaining present on the page. And yet, when I’m feeling disappointed by the news, when I’m fretting the unknown, I often remind myself that it’s writing—putting one word in front of the next, and making them sing—that renews my clarity. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for protecting my time and mind while I nurture new projects and directions, writing against and above oppression. The fellowship will allow me to hustle a little less. To disappear inside my work with greater frequency and renewed focus, without worrying so much about financial stability. This means more time to read and discover new writers whose words undo and remake me. To remain in sustained dialogue with diverse communities, dictions, and narratives talking back to one another, touching readers across time and territory. I am honored to receive this immense gift, and to join the rich history of literature fellows past and present. Thank you NEA, for the humbling vote of confidence.