Affiliated Faculty

Research Interests

The prose poem; fine printing; print making; publishing and book design.

Biography, Education and Training

Gary Young is a poet and artist whose honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Vogelstein Foundation, the California Arts Council, and two fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and his latest book of poems, That's What I Thought, won the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor's Choice Award from Persea Books. His book The Dream of a Moral Life, won the James D. Phelan Award. He is the author of several other collections of poetry including Hands; Days; Braver Deeds, winner the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize; No Other Life, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America; Pleasure; and most recently, Even So: New and Selected Poems. He is the co-editor of The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place; Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California; and One for the Money: The Sentence as a Poetic Form. He has produced a series of artist’s books, most notably Nine Days: New York, A Throw of the Dice and My Place Here Below. Since 1975 he has designed, illustrated, and printed limited edition books and broadsides at his Greenhouse Review Press. His print work is represented in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Getty Center for the Arts, and special collection libraries throughout the country. He was Santa Cruz County’s first Poet Laureate, and he is Santa Cruz County’s 2012 Artist of the Year. He teaches Creative Writing and directs the Cowell Press at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Honors, Awards and Grants

2021 Blue Light Poetry Prize for Red Cedar, Red Pine

2017 Gary D. Licker Memorial Chair at Cowell College

2017 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor's Choice Award, Persea Books

2014 Pavel Machotka Chair in Creative Studies at Porter College

2014 George Bogin Memorial Award

2013 Lucille Medwick Memorial Award

2012 Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year

2009 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America

2010 Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate

2003 & 1981, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship Grants

2002 William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America

2001 Lyric Poem Award of the Poetry Society of America

1992 Pushcart Prize

1998 Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize

1998 Amaranth Prose Poetry Prize 

1996 Adrienne Lee Award in Poetry

1994 Western Books Exhibition Competition Winner

1993 California Arts Council Grant in Poetry

1992 Pushcart Prize

1991 Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant in Poetry

1990 Dewar’s Young Artists Recognition Award in Literature

1990 The John Ciardi Fellowship in Poetry

1986 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship

1986 James D. Phelan Award in Literature

Selected Publications

• That's What I Thought, 2018, Persea Books.
• Precious Mirror: from the Calligrpahy of Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi, with translations by Gary Young, 2018, White Pine Press.
• Even So: New and Selected Poems, 2012, White Pine Press.
• One for the Money: The Sentence as a Poetic Form, 2012, Lynx House Press.
• Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California, 2008, Greenhouse Review Press / Alcatraz Editions.
• No Other Life, poems, 2002, Creative Arts Books.

Selected Exhibitions

• California Printers in the Fine Press Tradition, 1975-2006: Selections from Stanford's Special Collections.
• Ninety from the Nineties: A Decade of Printing, New York Public Library.
• By Chance: Serendipity and Randomness in Contemporary Artists’ Books, Yale Sterling Library.
• American Book Arts. Istvá Király Múzeum, Székesfehérvár, Hungary.
• The Last Book, “El último libro,” Biblioteca Nacional Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Pyramid Atlantic Book Art Fair Invitational. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Hands at Work: A Celebration of American Book Crafts. The Institute for the Book Arts, The University of Alabama.

Teaching Interests

Poetry, Book Arts, print making and book design.