Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, has lived in the United States since 1939, taught high school English in New York City for several years, and writes poetry and prose both in English and in her native Spanish. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Lyric, Poetry, Sparrow, Orbis, The Formalist and The American Scholar, as well as in some two dozen anthologies, including The Heath Introduction to Poetry, Sixth Edition, 2000; The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press, 1997); A Formal Feeling Comes (Story Line Press, 1994); In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the U.S. (Arte Publico Press, 1994); E: The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology (Universities West Press) for both 1997 and 2000; Landscapes with Women: Four American Poets (Singular Speech Press, 1999) and An Introduction to Poetry (Longman Publishers, Tenth ed.).

Espaillat has five poetry collections in print: Rhina P. Espaillat: Greatest Hits, 1942-2001 (Pudding House Press, 2003), Lapsing to Grace (Bennett & Kitchel, 1992); Where Horizons Go (Truman State University Press, 1998), winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize; Rehearsing Absence, (University of Evansville Press), winner of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award; and Mundo y Palabra/The World and the Word, a bilingual chapbook (Oyster River Press). She also won the 1998 Howard Nemerov Award, the Sparrow Sonnet Prize for 1997, and three yearly prizes from the Poetry Society of America. Espaillat lives in Newburyport, MA, where she coordinates the Newburyport Art Association Annual Poetry Contest, directs the Powow River Poets and conducts the PRP's monthly reading series.

Her recent awards include: The 2003 National Poetry Book Prize, sponsored by Salmon Run Press; the winning ms is titled Playing at Stillness, and is due for publication later this year; the 2003 Stanzas Prize, sponsored by David Robert Books; the winning ms is titled The Shadow I Dress In, and is due for publication in the spring of 2004; and the 2003 Oberon Prize of $1,000 for a poem titled "Translating," an H.M. in the Tor House Foundation 2003 Poetry Contest for "Two Crows," and the 2003 Leslie Mellichamp Prize from The Lyric for "Poet in Summer Garden."

Home - About Us - Bridge I - Bridge II - Bridge III - Bridge IV - Guestbook - Submission Guidelines - Related Links - University of Massachusetts Lowell

Contact Bridge Review: BridgeReview@uml.edu
Copyright © 2003 by The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture and University of Massachusetts Lowell. All Rights Reserved for compilation. Rights revert to individual contributors following publication. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher and individual contributor.