A poetry reading by Devon Walker-Figueroa, made possible by the Robert J. and Katherin Carr visiting author series.
Devon Walker-Figueroa is the author of Philomath (Milkweed Editions, 2021). A winner of the National Poetry Series and the Levis Reading Prize, Philomath was the first poetry collection to be named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. Her next collection, Lazarus Species, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in 2025.
Walker-Figueroa grew up in Kings Valley, a ghost town in the Oregon Coast Range. After leaving home at fifteen, she received her education from Chemeketa Community College; Cornell University; Bennington College; the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and New York University, where she was the Jill Davis Fellow in fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, POETRY, American Poetry Review, Zyzzyva, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.
As a 2022-2023 Amy Lowell Traveling Scholar, Walker-Figueroa researched quondam sites of resource extraction in the Namib and Kalihari Deserts, exploring the decay of industries and towns within the context of ecological and cultural recovery and reconfiguration.
In the past, she has worked as a professional ballet and modern dancer, research assistant, classical harpist, bartender, literary editor, and creative writing instructor (University of Iowa, UArts, Saint Joseph’s College, and NYU).