Lance Larsen

Born in Idaho, Lance Larsen was educated at Brigham Young University, where he earned both his BA and MA, and at the University of Houston, where he earned a PhD in literature and creative writing. He is the author of five collections of poetry, including What the Body Knows (2018); Backyard Alchemy (2009); In All Their Animal Brilliance (2005), winner of the Tampa Review Prize; and Erasable Walls (1998). His poems touch on Mormon heritage while examining everyday encounters. Mike White, in Valparaiso Poetry Review, noted of Larsen’s Backyard Alchemy that “the metamorphic translation of beings from one mode of existence to another is the dominant motif of the collection.”

Larsen has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2017, he completed a five-year appointment as Utah’s poet laureate. He is a professor of English at Brigham Young University.