About Adrian Matejka
Adrian Matejka is an American poet who was born in Nuremberg, Germany and grew up in California and Indiana. He was the poet laureate of Indiana for the 2018-2019 term. He is the author of The Devil's Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) and Mixology (Penguin, 2009). His third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), is about Jack Johnson and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His newest collections, Somebody Else Sold the World (2021) and Map to the Stars (2017), were published by Penguin. His first graphic novel, Last On His Feet, will be published by Liveright in 2022. Matters of race and identity, figured against the ever-shifting backdrop of media culture, are of central importance to Matejka. His poems make use of musicality, pop culture references, and unexpected combinations of images and phrases.His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and in anthologies including From the Fishouse (Persea Books, 2009) and The Best American Poetry 2010 (Scribner, 2010).
He teaches literature and creative writing at Indiana University, and was the Indiana State Poet Laureate for 2018 and 2019. In 2022, he was named editor of Poetry magazine.
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