Eugenia Leigh (Poetry) | Brooklyn, NY

Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books), the winner of the 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry, as well as a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Rumpus, North American Review, The Collagist, Muzzle, and the Best New Poets 2010 anthology. The recipient of fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers Magazine, Kundiman, The Frost Place, Rattle, and the Asian American Literary Review, Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Books

Press & Reviews

“Built out of blood and awe, rooted in sorrow and radiant lyricism, these poems remind us that ‘to survive is to be / wholly human.’ Divine and earthly voices haunt these poems. God and parents singe the speaker’s heart; angels and sisters redeem it. These poems are brutal and brilliant. But also instructive. They teach us to ‘weld our wounds / to form tools.’ This is a book of moving and startling epiphanies. I can’t wait to teach it.”
—Eduardo C. Corral

“This book went through me like a blue lightning strike. Part lyric, part narrative, and always alive, unflinchingly alive. A wonderful book and an even more astonishing debut!”
—Thomas Lux

“Whether furious psalm or impassioned testimony, the woman we meet in these poems is sharply aware that any kind of answer fragments into further questions. And she is committed to such undertakings. In Eugenia Leigh’s moving debut collection, Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows, the reader is drawn into a childhood that is ‘My father’s voice full of boils’ … ‘I offer God 1997’ … ‘angel hunting’ … ‘my mother’s voice, / flapping in my blood: If you need to run, run’ … and daring to ‘hate the dead.’ Join her in this resolve.”
—Kimiko Hahn

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