Mary Jo Bang

Author of Elegy: Poems

About the Author

Mary Jo Bang has published seven poetry collections, including The Lost Two Seconds and Elegy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and an acclaimed translation of Dante's Inferno. She teaches at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Image credit: Poet Mary Jo Bang at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44360577

Works by Mary Jo Bang

Popular Recent

Elegy: Poems (2007) 110 copies, 1 review

Louise in Love (2001) 53 copies

The Last Two Seconds: Poems (2015) 49 copies

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon: Poems (Grover Press Poetry) (2004) 45 copies

Apology for Want (Bakeless Prize) (1997) 31 copies, 1 review

The Bride of E: Poems (2009) 31 copies, 1 review

A Doll for Throwing: Poems (2017) (2017) 27 copies

The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans (2001) 24 copies

A Film in Which I Play Everyone: Poems (2023) 20 copies

Inferno (2013) 9 copies

Whatever You Desire: A Book of Lesbian Poetry (1990) 7 copies

A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi (The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) (2024) — Translator — 4 copies

Paradiso (2025) 3 copies

Work Explorer

Associated Works

The Best American Poetry 2001 (2001) — Contributor — 237 copies, 1 review

The Art of Losing (2010) — Contributor — 237 copies, 22 reviews

The Best American Poetry 2004 (2004) — Contributor — 219 copies

The Best American Poetry 2007 (2007) — Contributor — 172 copies, 1 review

The Best American Poetry 2017 (2017) — Contributor — 112 copies, 1 review

The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (2016) — Contributor — 77 copies

The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales (2003) — Contributor — 70 copies, 1 review

Orpheus and Company: Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology (1999) — Contributor — 52 copies, 1 review

Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics Across North America (2012) — Contributor — 12 copies

Poetry Magazine Vol. 205 No. 2, November 2014 (2014) — Contributor — 5 copies, 1 review

Poetry January/February 2024 (Vol.223, #4) — Contributor — 5 copies

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21st century (11) adult (2) American (10) American literature (3) American poetry (11) Asian Literature (2) award winner (3) books by women (3) Civitella Library (2) contemporary poetry (5) English (2) English language (2) First Edition (4) goodreads import (2) Graywolf (2) ID (2) inscribed (2) know author (4) literary (5) literary-read (5) literature (2) nypl-to-read (3) own (3) poetry (125) poetry-read (5) to-read (34) unread (3) USA (3) woman poet (3) women writers (4)

Common Knowledge

Birthdate: 1946
Gender: female
Education: Northwestern University (BA, MA|Sociology)
Polytechnic of Central London (BA|Photography)
Columbia University (MFA|Creative Writing)
Occupations: poet
editor
photographer
physician assistant
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Waynesville, Missouri, USA
Places of residence: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
London, England, UK
New York, New York, USA
Associated Place (for map): USA

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Reviews

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3 reviews

theageofsilt 130 reviews

Elegy: Poems by Mary Jo Bang

These poems are short, simply written and very powerful. They center on the poet's loss of a son and chronicle the emotional aftermath of a year of grief. One contemplates the astonishing reality that a child has become a heap of ash stored in an urn. These are not poems of a hopeful moving on, but a solemn representation of a time of memory and shock.

Apr 8, 2009

Poemblaze 277 reviews

Apology for want by Mary Jo Bang