Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

Poet Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello grew up in Ithaca, New York. She earned a BA at Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA at Florida International University, where she received a John S. and James L. Knight Fellowship and an Academy of American Poets Prize.

Citing the poet Ai as an early influence, Cancio-Bello composes image-rich lyric poems in which she engages crossings and transformations, the nature of grief, and desire. She is author of the chapbook Last Train to the Midnight Market (2013) and the full-length collection Hour of the Ox (2016), which won the 2015 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Her poems have also appeared in Best New Poets 2015, and she is the recipient of a Kundiman fellowship.

Cofounding editor of Print-Oriented Bastards, Cancio-Bello has also served as a contributing editor for Florida Book Review and an assistant editor for Jai-Alai Magazine. She has been program coordinator for the Miami Book Fair and a producer for The Working Poet Radio Show. She lives in Miami.