African Literature and Culture Society Honors Duriel Harris for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry

Duriel Harris, professor of poetry and poetics at Illinois State University, has received the Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry from the African Literature and Culture Society.

Dr. Harris first joined the faculty at Illinois State University as an assistant professor in 2009. Prior to her current role, she served as an assistant professor at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, and as a visiting scholar with the Center for Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her teaching and academic interests include poetry writing, poetics, and African American literature.

Outside of her faculty position, Dr. Harris is editor of the peer-reviewed journal Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. Additionally, she is author of three poetry volumes: No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat Books, 2017), Amnesiac: Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 2010), and Drag (Elixir Press, 2003).

Dr. Harris is a graduate of Yale University where she majored in literature. She holds a master’s degree in English and American literature from New York University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois.