Joyce Sutphen


Joyce Sutphen is an American poet who served as Minnesota's Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2021. She was the state's second laureate, appointed by Governor Mark Dayton in August, 2011 to succeed Robert Bly. Sutphen is professor emerita of English at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.

Life

Sutphen was raised in Saint Joseph, Minnesota, and currently resides in the city of Chaska. She holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, including her Ph.D. in Renaissance Drama.
Her first book of poetry, Straight Out of View, won the Barnard New Women's Poets Prize. Her second, Coming Back to the Body, was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and her third, Naming the Stars, also from Holy Cow! Press, won the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry.
In 2005, Red Dragonfly Press published a fine press edition of Fourteen Sonnets. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Water~Stone, Hayden's Ferry, Shenandoah, Luna.

Prizes

Poetry

Straight Out of View Coming Back to the Body Naming the Stars First Words After Words Modern Love & Other Myths
  • "The Green House"
  • "Carrying Water to the Field. New and Selected Poems"

Chapbooks

  • ''Fourteen Sonnets''

Anthologies

To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present, Joyce Sutphen, Connie Wanek, Thom Tammaro, eds. 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, Billy Collins, ed. Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation, Pamela Gemin and Paula Sergi, eds.