Introducing Norma Cole

This month, Harriet welcomes poet, translator, and teacher Norma Cole as our latest "Craft Work" writer.

Norma Cole’s recent books of poetry include Natural Light, Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988—2008 and Spinoza in Her Youth. A new book, Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside, will come out from Omnidawn Press in the fall. A book of essays and talks, To Be at Music just appeared, also from Omnidawn. Her translations include Jean Daive’s A Woman With Several Lives, Fouad Gabriel Naffah’s The Spirit God and the Properties of Nitrogen and Crosscut Universe: Writers on Writing From France. Cole has been the recipient of awards from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Gertrude Stein Awards, the Fund for Poetry, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2008 Cole was a Regents’ Lecturer at UC Berkeley and in 2011 was a columnist at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Open Space.” She teaches at the University of San Francisco.

“Craft Work” features poets, translators, editors, and publishers writing about the creative work done in their respective fields. Harriet hosts a featured writer on a bimonthly basis, and periodically presents live discussions between “Craft Work” writers and readers. If you have questions you would like writers to consider beforehand, or if you would like to suggest a “Craft Work” contributor, please e-mail [email protected].

You can read previous “Craft Work” features here.