Jennifer Elise Foerster is the author of three books of poetry, The Maybe Bird (The Song Cave, 2022), Bright Raft in the Afterweather (University of Arizona Press, 2018), and Leaving Tulsa (University of Arizona Press, 2013), and served as the Associate Editor of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (W.W. Norton, 2020). 

 

She is the recipient of a NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, and was a Robert Frost Fellow in Poetry at the Breadloaf Writers Conference and a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Jennifer received her PhD in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, her MFA from the Vermont College of the Fine Arts, and is an alumna of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).

 

She currently teaches for The Rainier Writing Workshop, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing and IAIA's Continuing Education Program, Orion Magazine, and other writing programs, while serving as the literary assistant to the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. She also works in non-profit administration for various arts and literary organizations and serves as Board Treasurer of Indigenous Nations Poets (IN-NA-PO).

 

Foerster grew up living internationally, is of European (German/Dutch) and Mvskoke descent, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. She lives in San Francisco.