Rhina Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. After Espaillat’s great-uncle opposed the regime, her family was exiled to the United States and settled in New York City. She began writing poetry as a young girl and has published in both Spanish and English. Espaillat’s poetry collections include And After All; Her Place in These Designs; Playing at Stillness; Rehearsing Absence, recipient of the Richard Wilbur Award; a bilingual chapbook titled Mundo y Palabra; Where Horizons Go, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Lapsing to Grace. Espaillat’s work has garnered many awards, including the Sparrow Sonnet Prize, three Poetry Society of America prizes, the Der-Hovanessian Translation Prize, and the Robert Frost Foundation’s Tree at My Window Award. She is a founding member of the Fresh Meadows Poets and a founding member of the Powow River Poets.