Luisa A. Igloria, a professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, has been named poet laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Since 2010, she has written at least one poem every day.
A native of the Philippines, Dr. Igloria serves as the Louis I. Jaffe Endowed Professor and University Professor of English and Creative Writing. She joined the faculty at Old Dominion University in 1998 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. She was director of the university’s master of fine arts degree program in creative writing program from 2009 to 2015. Her most recent book, Maps for Migrants and Ghosts, which was a co-winner of the Crab Orchard Open Poetry Prize, will be published in the fall by Southern Illinois University Press.
Professor Igloria, who has written nearly 20 collections of poetry, described the appointment as poet laureate as a “unique position for service and engagement through poetry. I hope to have many conversations with others, and to find meaningful ways to support and promote the voices of Virginia poets in particular and the work of poets and poetry in general as an important part of living in these times.”
Professor Igloria received her undergraduate degree in comparative literature from the University of the Philippines Baguio in 1980. She earned a master’s degree in literature at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a Ph.D. in English and creative writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago