Brian Henry

Poet, translator, and editor Brian Henry’s books include Things Are Completely Simple: Poetry and Translation (Parlor Press, 2022), Permanent State (Threadsuns, 2020), Static & Snow (Black Ocean, 2015), Brother No One (Salt Publishing, 2013), Doppelgänger (Talisman House, 2011), Lessness (Ahsahta Press, 2011), Wings Without Birds (Salt Publishing, 2010), The Stripping Point (Counterpath Press, 2007), In the Unlikely Event of a Water (Equipage, 2007), Quarantine (Ahsahta Press, 2006), Graft (Arc Publications/New Issues Press, 2003), American Incident (Salt Publishing, 2002), and Astronaut (Arc Publications, 2000). 

An advocate for Slovenian poets and poetry, Henry has translated many Slovenian books into English, such as Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008); six books by Aleš Šteger, including Burning Tongues: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2022) and The Book of Things (BOA Editions, 2010), which earned the 2011 Best Translated Book Award; and Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers (BOA Editions, 2015), for which Henry was awarded a 2011 Howard Foundation fellowship. He has directed the Tomaž Šalamun Prize since 2015. 

Henry was coeditor, with Andrew Zawacki, of Verse magazine from 1995 to 2018. Henry and Zawacki also coedited The Verse Book of Interviews: 27 Poets on Language, Craft & Culture (Wave Books, 2005). Henry also edited the collection of essays On James Tate (University of Michigan Press, 2004).

Henry’s poems, essays, and translations have been published in Poetry, The New Yorker, TheNew York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and other publications. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Program, the Slovenian Ministry of Culture, and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His honors and awards include a Distinguished Educator Award from the University of Richmond, a Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, an Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, and a George Bogin Memorial Award. 

Henry earned his BA at the College of William & Mary and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He teaches at the University of Richmond.