Stacy Szymaszek

B. 1969
Stacy Szymaszek

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Stacy Szymaszek is the author of The Pasolini Book (2018), A Year from Today (2021), Emptied of All Ships (2005), Hyperglossia (2009), hart island (2015), Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals (2016), which was the winner of the Ottoline Prize from Fence Books, and A Year From Today (2018), among others. She has also authored several chapbooks, including Orizaba: A Voyage with Hart Crane (2008), Stacy S.: Autoportraits (2008), and  from Hart Island (2009).
 
Szymaszek’s work encompasses a variety of voices and personas, eros, and queer identity. Hyperglossia references ancient Egyptian healing and makes use of wordplay and anagrams. Szymaszek commented in an interview with Susie DeFord for Bombsite.com: “‘Hyperglossia’ refers to the narrator’s attempt to tell her autobiography post–head trauma [.…] She’s not able to use language in a socially acceptable manner, and, through the book, her language is structured as close to the way the mind works as possible. She honors the nonsense, the nonlinearity, the ruse, the erroneous.”
 
In addition to frequently serving as a teacher for Naropa University's Summer Writing Program and as a mentor for Queer Art, Szymazek has previously worked at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee and is currently the director of the Poetry Project in New York City.