Denise Low

Former Kansas poet laureate Denise Low (she/her) taught over 25 years at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, where she founded the creative writing program. She is the author of House of Grace, House of Blood (University of Arizona Press, 2024), a verse/archival text of the 1782 massacre of Lenape Christian converts by Pennsylvania militia.

Her other books include Wing (Red Mountain Press, 2021); Shadow Light (Red Mountain Press, 2018), winner of an Editor’s Choice Award from Red Mountain Press; A Casino Bestiary (Spartan Press, 2017); Mélange Block (Red Mountain Press, 2014); Natural Theologies: Essays about Literature of the New Middle West (The Backwaters Press, 2011); and Ghost Stories of the New West (Woodley Press, 2010), which was a Kansas Notable Book and recognized by The Circle as among the best Native American Books of 2010.

Low is a founding board member of Indigenous Nations Poets. She served on the board of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs from 2008 to 2013, including in the role of president. She was a guest poet on the Academy of American Poets online forum.

Her poems and translations have been published or featured in Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound series, Blackbird, Marsh Hawk Review, New Letters, The Midwest Quarterly, I-70 Review, Yellow Medicine Review, and Jacket2.

Low earned a BA, MA, and PhD in English from the University of Kansas, and her MFA from Wichita State University. Low has been visiting professor at the University of Richmond and The University of Kansas. She has been honored with awards and fellowships from Kansas Arts Commission, Roberts Foundation, Lichtor Poetry Prize, and Sequoyah National Research Center for study of the works of Yuki-Filipino poet William Oandasan.

She now resides in Sonoma County, California, where she codirects the literary program of The 222.