Divya Victor
Associate Professor of Literary Studies
Divya Victor’s writing, editing, and research focuses on 20th century, 21st century, and emergent poetry and poetics.
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Divya Victor’s writing, editing, and research focuses on 20th, 21stC, and emergent poetry and poetics, with an emphasis on innovative and experimental forms and poets who undertake representations of trauma, both systemic and intersubjective.
She is the author of CURB (Nightboat Books, winner of 2022 PEN America Open Book Award and the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award); KITH (Fence Books/ Book*hug); Scheingleichheit: Drei Essays (Merve Verlag); NATURAL SUBJECTS (Trembling Pillow), UNSUB (Insert
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Blanc), THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR MOUTH (Les Figues). Her work has been collected in numerous venues, including BOMB, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader, Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, and boundary2.
Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at University of California San Diego, and a Writer in Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (L.A.C.E.). Her work has been performed or installed at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (L.A.C.E.) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
She has been an editor at Jacket2 (United States), Ethos Books (Singapore), Invisible Publishing (Canada) and Book*hug Press (Canada).
She is currently an Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University.
Education
University at Buffalo (SUNY): Ph.D., Literature
Temple University: M.A., Creative Writing, Poetry
Selected Press
Student writers share poetry, prose at 'live lit' performance
The State News | 2023-04-17
The Creative Writing Program, directed by Divya Victor, partnered with the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities Center for Poetry to create "Live Lit: a celebration of creative expression."
Divya Victor explores South Asian resilience in award-winning book, 'CURB'
WKAR Public Media | 2022-03-10
Now two decades later, Michigan State University professor Divya Victor has reflected on how this violence has impacted the ways South Asian immigrants navigate public spaces in a new book of poetry called CURB.
Solidarity, Motherhood and Immigration: Poet Divya Victor Shares Her South Asian Experience
Ms. Magazine | 2021-09-21
“Solidarity is the truth that historical debts never get paid in full. As an immigrant, I am standing on the shoulders of Black and Asian American civil rights leaders. … I feel morally and intellectually called to constantly honor this.”
