Join us for a conversation with award-winning poet and teacher Bobby Elliott ’11 on writing and assembling first books of poetry. Exploring the ins and outs of the process, Elliott will examine what it takes to go from a strong group of poems to a full-length manuscript, how to begin thinking through questions of sequencing and structure and the importance of a sustained writing practice after the MFA. A full Q&A and book signing will follow.
Bobby Elliott's debut collection of poems, The Same Man, was selected by Nate Marshall as the winner of the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press this September. Raised in New York City, he earned his B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and his M.F.A. from the University of Virginia, where he was a Poe/Faulkner Fellow. His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOMB, The Cortland Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Northwest, RHINO, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and sons.