Carey Salerno is the author of three books of poetry: Shelter, Tributary, and The Hungriest Stars. Her poems have been published in journals and magazines broadly and have recently appeared in Poetry, The Georgia Review, American Poetry Review, and The Harvard Review. She is the recipient of a 2025 Pushcart Prize and a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Council. Salerno serves as the executive director and publisher of Alice James Books.
Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently An Optimism (Persea Books, 2025). His writing has been supported by fellowships from Cave Canem, the Lannan Foundation, and the ACLS. Presently, he is an Associate Professor in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival takes place in April each year and is the largest, open, student-run Poetry Festival in New York. Since 2003, we have been dedicated to the celebration of contemporary poetry and the creation of community around the art form. Previously, we have welcomed poets such as Terrance Hayes, Sharon Olds, Anne Carson, Kaveh Akbar, Tracy K. Smith, Donika Kelly, Claudia Rankine, Li-Young Lee, SLC’s very own Marie Howe, among many others. Our festival includes readings, panel discussions, generative sessions, craft talks, and more! We hope to see you there.
Free and open to the public, this year our festival will run from April 17 - 19th here on campus! For more information, please contact us at slcpoetryfest@gmail.com or follow us on Instagram (@slcpoetryfest). Register to attend.