Ed Skoog

Ed Skoog was born in Topeka, Kansas. He earned an MFA from the University of Montana. His collections of poetry include the chapbooks Toolkit (1995) and Field Recording (2003), and the full-length volumes Mister Skylight (2009), Rough Day (2013) and Travelers Leaving for the City (2020). Skoog’s work is noted for its wild lexicon and leaping intelligence. A reviewer in the Harvard Review compared Skoog’s work to that of Wallace Stevens and the New York School poets, noting his “verbal montages.” Reviewer Henry Hughes added, “readers must surrender their demands for whole meaning in the narrative sense to enjoy the verbal play—the sounds, phrases, and crazy connections that suggest new ways of reading the world.” His poems have appeared in Harper’s, the Paris Review, American Poetry Review, the New Republic, Poetry magazine, The Best American Poetry series, and elsewhere.

Skoog has taught at the Idyllwild Arts Foundation in Idyllwild, California, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and Tulane University. He has been the Jenny McKean Moore Writer in Washington at George Washington University and writer-in-residence at the Richard Hugo House. He has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and the Lannan Foundation.