Cammy Thomas

Cammy Thomas’ most recent book is Odysseus' Daughter (Parkman Press, 2023), poems written in response to the Odyssey. Her first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish (Four Way Books), received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Irish poet Medbh McGuckian, who selected the book, said of the poems, in part: "A first book is nearly always autobiographical and personal, and this one is so burningly. These 'gasps,' for such they are, at the extremes of family brutality and shame, where only the italicized parental speeches are punctuated, reveal a painful story that is all too familiar, without self-pity, charting a male power and abuse so starkly as to be almost a political diagnosis."

 

A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second book, Inscriptions. Her third book, Tremors, received Poetry Honors from the 2022 Mass Book Awards.  Both are published by Four Way Books. Her poems have recently appeared in Image, Poetry Porch, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gravel, and Compose, and in the anthologies, Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books), and Echoes from Walden (edited by David Leff, from Wayfarer Books). Her poem, "French Toast," was featured on Poem-a-Day on August 6, 2021.

 

Two of her poems are the text for Far Past War, a choral work by her sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas, which premiered with the Cathedral Choral Society, at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, March 13, 2022, and has had subsequent performances at RPI, and at the Groton Hill Music Center, with the Nashoba Valley Chorale.
 
After growing up on Long Island, she was educated primarily in California, receiving her BA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MA from San Francisco State University. She wrote her PhD dissertation on the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. An MFA followed, from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She has taught literature and creative writing for many years, and lives in Bolton, Massachusetts.

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Email Cammy below.