Carol V. Davis

Poet Carol Davis studied Russian language and literature at Western Washington University and earned a degree in interdisciplinary studies there as well as an MA in Slavic language and literature from the University of Washington. She is the author of the full-length poetry collections It’s Time to Talk About…/Pora Govorit’o—(1997), a bilingual collection published in Russia; Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg (2007), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; Between Storms (2012); and Because I Cannot Leave This Body (2017). Her chapbooks include Letters from Prague (1991) and The Violin Teacher (2005).

Davis weaves together observations of life in contemporary Russia, history, folktales, and the natural world. Her work explores the estrangement of life in a foreign country as well as the heritage of her grandparents, Jewish immigrants from Russia. As a senior Fulbright scholar from 1996 to 1997 and in 2005, Davis taught at Petersburg Jewish University and St. Petersburg State University. In 2008, she was poet-in-residence at Olivet College in Michigan. She teaches at Santa Monica College and Antioch University in California.