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Shara McCallum
Shara McCallum reading at Split This Rock 2018, Washington, D.C.
Born	Kingston, Jamaica
Alma mater	University of Miami, University of Maryland, College Park Binghamton University
Genre	Poetry
Notable works	Madwoman
Notable awards	National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for poetry
Website
www.sharamccallum.com

Shara McCallum is an American poet. She was awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. McCallum is the author of four collections of poems, including Madwoman, which won the 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature in the poetry category. She currently lives in Pennsylvania.

Life and work

McCallum was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to an African Jamaican father, Alastair McCallum, and a Venezuelan mother, Migdalia Bertorelli McCallum.

McCallum graduated from the University of Miami, from the University of Maryland with an M.F.A., and from Binghamton University in New York with a PhD. She has taught at the Stonecoast MFA program.

McCallum directs the Stadler Center for Poetry and taught creative writing and literature at Bucknell University. McCallum is now a professor of English at Penn State University. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

McCallum's work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Callaloo, Chelsea, The Iowa Review, Verse, Creative Nonfiction, Seneca Review, and Witness. Her poems can be found in a number of journals worldwide in places like the United States, the UK, Israel and Latin America.

Religion

When she was a child, McCallum was raised practicing Rastafari; however when she migrated to the United States she stopped considering herself a member of any religion. Later in life, she converted to Judaism. McCallum was particularly fond of the idea that Judaism held about being part of a larger community than yourself alone. She found inspiration for her poems in the songs and practices, such as myths and rituals, of her religion. McCallum believes that her form of prayer and mediation is poetry.

Honors and awards

• 1998 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
• Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant
• Tennessee Individual Artist Grant in Literature
• 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry
• Poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
• Bynner award from the Library of Congress.
• 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for poetry (for Madwoman).

Publications

Full-length poetry collections

• The Water Between Us. University of Pittsburgh Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-8229-5710-2.
• Song of Thieves. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-8229-5813-0.
• This Strange Land (Alice James Books, forthcoming)
• Madwoman (Alice James Books 2017)

Nonfiction

• Emmanuel Sampath Nelson, ed. (2000). "Mary Church Terrell". African American authors, 1745–1945. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30910-6.

Anthology publications

• Michael Collier, ed. (2000). The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology Series. University Press of New England.
• E. Ethelbert Miller, ed. (2002). Beyond the Frontier. Black Classic Press. ISBN 978-1-57478-017-8.
• Billy Collins, ed. (2003). Poetry 180: a turning back to poetry. Random House Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8129-6887-3.
• Kei Miller, ed. (2007). New Caribbean Poetry: an anthology. Carcanet. ISBN 978-1-85754-941-6.

References

1. ^ National Endowment of the Arts 2011 Poetry Fellows Archived 27 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Nea.gov. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
2. "OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature". Bocas Lit Fest. 10 March 2024.
3. ^ "Shara McCallum". Poetry Foundation. 4 February 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
4. College Park Magazine | Feature | University of Maryland Archived 30 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Urhome.umd.edu (18 October 1972). Retrieved 20 October 2011.
5. Shara McCallum, Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Poets.org. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
6. Shara McCallum Archived 6 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
7. From the Director of the Stadler Center for Poetry || Bucknell University. Bucknell.edu. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
8. Shara McCallum || Bucknell University. Bucknell.edu (1 October 2011). Retrieved 20 October 2011.
9. Shara McCallum | Directory of Writers | Poets & Writers. Pw.org (16 June 2009). Retrieved 20 October 2011.
10. Shara McCallum (Spring 2001). "Jamaica, October 18, 1972". The Antioch Review. 59 (2): 281. doi:10.2307/4614160. JSTOR 4614160.
11. Shara McCallum (Autumn 2004). "Penelope". The Antioch Review. 62 (4): 707. doi:10.2307/4614740. JSTOR 4614740.
12. McCallum, Shara (2002). "Muscular Music (review)". Callaloo. 25 (2): 693–694. doi:10.1353/cal.2002.0090. S2CID 161249226. Project MUSE 6787.
13. The Seneca Review. Hobart Student Association. 1998.
14. ^ Davis, Todd F. (15 September 2015). "Embracing Mythologies". Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. 17 (3): 440–456. doi:10.5325/intelitestud.17.3.0440.
15. Alice James Books > News & Events Archived 5 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine
16. McCallum, Shara, 1972– (2017). Madwoman. Farmington, Maine. ISBN 978-1-938584-28-2. OCLC 945949128.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

External links

• Magdelyn Hammond, "An Interview with Shara McCallum" Archived 28 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Smartish Pace
• "Shara McCallum, Director of the Stadler Center for Poetry", YouTube
• "For Rachel, Just before Speech", ars poetica
• "The Art Room", Poetry Foundation
• "Matins". Ploughshares. Spring 2002. Archived from the original on 20 August 2006.
• "The News", Cave Canem

• Living people
• 21st-century American women
• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize winners
• American people of Venezuelan descent
• American women academics
• American women poets
• Binghamton University alumni
• Bucknell University faculty
• Converts to Judaism
• Former Rastafarians
• Hispanic and Latino American poets
• Jamaican emigrants to the United States
• Jamaican people of Venezuelan descent
• Jewish American academics
• Jewish American poets
• Jewish women writers
• University of Maryland, College Park alumni
• University of Miami alumni
• University of Southern Maine faculty
• Writers from Kingston, Jamaica
• Writers in Jamaican Patois