Oliver Baez Bendorf

Oliver Baez Bendorf (born 1987) is an American poet.

Oliver Baez Bendorf
Born	(1987-06-21) June 21, 1987 (age 36) Iowa City, Iowa, US
Nationality	American
Education	University of Iowa (BA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MFA) (MLIS)
Genre	Poetry
Notable works	The Spectral Wilderness (2015), Advantages of Being Evergreen (2019)
Website
www.oliverbaezbendorf.com

Early life and education

Oliver Baez Bendorf was born on June 21, 1987,^[1] in Iowa City, Iowa.^[2] His poems sometimes feature the landscape of his childhood,^[3] and his writing about returning to Iowa for a visit while transitioning genders was published in Buzzfeed.^[4] He graduated with a BA from the University of Iowa in 2009. In 2013, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he met his teachers Lynda Barry,^[5] Quan Barry, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Ronald Wallace.^[6] In 2015, he received an MA in Library and Information Studies, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison,^[7] where he worked with The Little Magazine Collection, one of the most extensive of its kind in the United States.^[8][9] Bendorf is a fellow of the CantoMundo Poetry Workshop.

Career

Bendorf's poetry publications include the book The Spectral Wilderness^[10], selected by Mark Doty for the 2013 Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize, and released by Kent State University Press in 2015,^[11] and Advantages of Being Evergreen, which was selected for the 2018 Open Book Poetry Competition from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and published in September 2019. ^[12] American poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi called Advantages of Being Evergreen "an essential book for our time and for all time" and wrote that "Baez Bendorf is making a future grammar for the moment all of our vessels are free and held. I am living for the world these poems anticipate… This is a book of the earth’s abiding wonder. And the body’s unbreakable ability to bloom."^[13]

His third book of poems, Consider the Rooster, will be published by Nightboat Books in 2024.^[14]

His work has appeared in publications including Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day,^[15] American Poetry Review,^[16] BOMB,^[17] Black Warrior Review,^[18] jubilat,^[19] Poetry Magazine,^[20] and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics.^[21] He has published essays^[22] and comics poetry,^[23] in addition to poetry, and his poetry has been translated into Russian by Dmitry Kuzmin.^[24]

He has taught poetry and creative writing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 826DC, Madison Public Library, District of Columbia Public Schools, Mount Holyoke College, Wick Poetry Center, Kalamazoo College,^[25] Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference,^[26] and elsewhere.^[27]

Bendorf is a transgender man, and has used his work to discuss gender identity and transition, sometimes in humorous ways.^[28][29] He is of German, Southern Italian, and Puerto Rican (Afro-Taíno and Spanish) ancestry.^[30]

In 2020, Bendorf was awarded the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from Publishing Triangle, presented to an LGBTQ writer who has shown exceptional talent and promise.^[31][32] Bendorf was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.^[33] In 2021, he joined the poetry faculty of the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.^[34]

Awards and honors

• 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry^[35]
• 2020 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, Publishing Triangle^[36]
• 2019 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series Prize, Seven Kitchens Press^[37]
• 2018 Open Book Poetry Competition, Cleveland State University Poetry Center^[38]
• 2017-2018 Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing^[39]
• 2015 New American Poets, Poetry Society of America. Selected by Natalie Diaz^[40]
• 2013-14 Doug Fir Fiction Award, The Bear Deluxe. Selected by Lidia Yuknavitch^[41]
• 2013 Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize, The Spectral Wilderness, Kent State University Press, 2015. Selected by Mark Doty^[42]
• 2011-13 Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in Poetry at University of Wisconsin-Madison^[43]

Works

• Poem: "I Just Chose My Place and Let the Circle Form Around Me". The Nation. 2021.^[44]
• Poem: “Impervious”. The Cincinnati Review. 2020. ^[45]
• Poem: “River I Dream About”. American Poetry Review. 2020.^[46]
• Poem: "Settler/Unsettled". BOMB Magazine. 2019.^[47]
• Book: Advantages of Being Evergreen. Cleveland State University Poetry Center. 2019. ISBN 9781880834008.
• Book: The Spectral Wilderness: Poems. Kent State University Press. 2015. ISBN 9781606352113.

References

1. "Bendorf, Oliver, 1987-". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
2. "Oliver Baez Bendorf". Oliver Baez Bendorf. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
3. Sahaidachny, Rachel (2016-07-12). "The Spectral Wilderness / Oliver Bendorf". thesoutheastreview. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
4. Bendorf, Oliver Baez (21 January 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
5. "An Interview With Oliver Baez Bendorf | Poets & Writers". www.pw.org. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
6. . creativewriting.wisc.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
7. Mears, Jaime (February 22, 2017). "Assembling the Whole: An Interview with Librarian|Artist Oliver Baez Bendorf". The Signal. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
8. "Little Magazine Interview Index – UW Digital Collections". Retrieved 2019-04-02.
9. "The Oliver Bendorf Exit Interview". Little Magazine Collection. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
10. "The Spectral Wilderness - The Kent State University Press". www.kentstateuniversitypress.com. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
11. "2013 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Awarded to Oliver Bendorf | Kent State University". www.kent.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
12. "2018 Book Contest Results". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. 27 June 2018. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
13. "Advantages of Being Evergreen". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
14. "Queers in Winter with Oliver Baez Bendorf, Michael V. Smith and Hazel Jane Plante (on Zoom)". Creative Writing. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
15. Baez Bendorf, Oliver (2017-12-18). "Evergreen". Evergreen. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
16. "American Poetry Review - Oliver Baez Bendorf - "River I Dream About"". American Poetry Review. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
17. "BOMB 147 / Spring 2019". shop.bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
18. "Ritual by Oliver Baez Bendorf | BWR". BWR. 2018-01-11. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
19. "Number 24 - jubilat". www.jubilat.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
20. Magazine, Poetry (2019-04-02). "Bone Dust by Oliver Baez Bendorf". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
21. "The Body of the Poem: On Transgender Poetry - Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
22. Bendorf, Oliver (21 January 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
23. "Spotlight: A Poetry Comics Discussion". The Rumpus.net. 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
24. Бендорф, Оливер (2018). "Квирные факты об овощах". Воздух (in Russian). Retrieved March 20, 2021.
25. "English: Faculty and Staff. Kalamazoo College". reason.kzoo.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
26. "Faculty and Guests | Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences". www.middlebury.edu. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
27. "Events". Oliver Baez Bendorf. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
28. Bendorf, Oliver (January 20, 2014). "After I Came Out As A Transgender Man, I Was Asked If It Felt Like I Had Died". BuzzFeed. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
29. Rodriguez, Mathew (September 23, 2016). "In Oliver Bendorf's 'Top Surgery' zine, a trans man uses humor to recover — and to educate". Mic.com. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
30. "Settler/Unsettled by Oliver Baez Bendorf - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
31. "Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists, Yiyun Li's Virtual Book Club, and More". Poets & Writers. 2020-03-17. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
32. "Oliver Baez Bendorf Wins Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award". The Publishing Triangle. 2020-03-16. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
33. "National Endowment for the Arts Supports the Arts with over $27.5 Million in Awards in First Round of FY2021 Funding". www.arts.gov. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
34. Caleb (2022-05-27). "Oliver Baez Bendorf". MFA Program for Writers | Warren Wilson. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
35. "National Endowment for the Arts Supports the Arts with over $27.5 Million in Awards in First Round of FY2021 Funding". www.arts.gov. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
36. "Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists, Yiyun Li's Virtual Book Club, and More". Poets & Writers. 2020-03-17. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
37. "Oliver Baez Bendorf | the Gospel According to X". 8 January 2019.
38. "2018 Book Contest Results". Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
39. "WI Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships". WI Institute for Creative Writing. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
40. "Oliver Bendorf, selected by Natalie Diaz - Poetry Society of America". www.poetrysociety.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
41. "Bear Deluxe Magazine". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
42. "2013 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Awarded to Oliver Bendorf | Kent State University". www.kent.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
43. Daily, Verse. "About Oliver Bendorf and The Journal". www.versedaily.org. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
44. Bendorf, Oliver Baez (2021-10-19). "I Just Chose My Place and Let the Circle Form Around Me". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
45. http://www.facebook.com/CincinnatiReview (2020-06-04). ""Impervious" by Oliver Baez Bendorf - The Cincinnati Review". Retrieved 2023-07-20. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); External link in |last= (help)
46. "American Poetry Review - Oliver Baez Bendorf - "River I Dream About"". American Poetry Review. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
47. "BOMB Magazine | Settler/Unsettled". BOMB Magazine. 2019-06-25. Retrieved 2023-07-20.