Bio/Press Kit

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, and The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, published by Liveright Press in 2023, is long listed for the National Book Award and is the winner of the 2023 New England Book Award. With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves on the board for Poetry Daily and on the board for the Worcester County Poetry Association.

A recipient of grants and awards from the NEA, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Artist Trust, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, his work has appeared in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Poetry, and in anthologies and periodicals such as Asian American Poetry:  The Next Generation and in the New York Times. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University.