Mary Jo Bang

Bang grew up in Ferguson, Missouri. She graduated from Northwestern University, in sociology, from the Polytechnic of Central London, and from Columbia University, with an M.F.A. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Her work has appeared in New American Writing, Paris Review, The New Yorker,[2] The New Republic, Denver Quarterly and Harvard Review.

Bang was the poetry co-editor of the Boston Review from 1995 to 2005. She was a judge for the 2004 James Laughlin Award.

She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

• Berlin Prize Fellowship, 2015
• Publishers Weekly; "2007 Best Books of the Year" St. Louis Post-Dispatch; "Most Recommended" National Book
• National Book Critics Circle Award, 2007
• Washington University Faculty Research Grant, Summer 2007
• Bellagio Foundation Fellowship 2007
• Finalist, Anna Akhmatova Award 2006
• Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award 2005 (Fannie Howe, Judge) & 2002 (Brenda Hillman, Judge)
• Bogliosco Foundation Fellowship 2005
• Guggenheim Fellowship 2004
• Pushcart Prize 2003
• "Louise in Love" listed in: "Notable Books in 2001" National Book Critics Circle; "Best Books of 2001" St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poets Series Competition 2000 (Mark Strand, Judge)
• Hodder Fellowship, Princeton University 1999-2000
• Chateau Lavigny Fellowship 1999
• Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writer's Award 1998
• Yaddo Fellowship 1998
• "Apology for Want" listed in “Notable Books in 1997” by the National Book Critics Circle
• Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Fellowship, 1997
• Katharine Bakeless Nason Publication Prize 1996 (Edward Hirsh, Judge)
• MacDowell Colony Fellowship, 1996
• "Discovery" The Nation Poetry Award 1995
• Honorable Mention, Academy of American Poets Poetry Competition, 1995 (Robert Pinsky, Judge)
• Columbia University School of the Arts Dean's Award, 1994

Wayne Koestenbaum writes:

Mary Jo Bang's remarkable elegies recall the late work of Ingeborg Bachmann—a febrile, recursive lyricism. Like Nietzsche or Plath, Bang flouts naysayers; luridly alive, she drives deep into aporia, her new, sad country. Her stanzas, sometimes spilling, sometimes severe, perform an uncanny death-song, recklessly extended—nearly to the breaking point.[1]

David Orr writes:

This is perhaps why Mary Jo Bang largely succeeds in her new book of elegies for her son, called, simply enough, “Elegy.” Bang’s previous four collections are polished and frequently interesting, but they also contain more than their share of overwrought and overthought poetry about poetry....That can’t be said of “Elegy.” This is a tightly focused, completely forthright collection written almost entirely in the bleakest key imaginable. The poems aren’t all great, some of them aren’t even good, but collectively they are overwhelming — which is both a compliment to Bang’s talent and to the toughness of mind that allowed her to attempt this difficult project in the first place.[3]

• "Mary Jo Bang Examines Grief's Poetic Form, the Elegy", NewsHour, PBS
• "Mary Jo Bang", Poetry Foundation