Anna Rabinowitz

Anna Rabinowitz was born in Brooklyn in 1933. She received a BA from Brooklyn College and an MFA from Columbia University.

Her debut book of poetry, At the Site of Inside Out (University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), was awarded the 1996 Juniper Prize. Upon its publication, the poet Bin Ramke wrote, “Anna Rabinowitz has been biding her time, insinuating her intelligence into the interstices of this culture we are still inheriting from an unfolding (enfolding) century.”

Her second book, Darkling: A Poem (Tupelo Press, 2001), is an acrostic sequence based on her collection of letters written by family members lost in the Holocaust. In collaboration with American Opera Projects, she turned this fragmented exploration of the twentieth century into a libretto; the opera, scored by Stefan Weisman, was performed in many venues and released internationally by Albany Records in 2011. Of the collaboration, she says, “Something happens when you take poetry off the page—this kind of embodiment. An enactment. Things that might seem initially innocuous take on another life. Darkling had another life.”

She has published two other poetry collections: Present Tense (Omnidawn, 2010) and The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders (Tupelo Press, 2006), which she also adapted into a libretto scored by Tarik O’Regan.

A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rabinowitz has taught at The New School in New York City and is editor and publisher emerita of American Letters & Commentary. She serves as Vice President of the Board of Governors for the Poetry Society of America and Vice President of American Opera Projects. She lives in New York City.