Enid Shomer

Biography

Poet and fiction writer Enid Shomer is the author of seven books of poetry and three of fiction, most recently Riptide: New and Selected Poems (Blair, 2026). Her work has been collected in more than fifty anthologies and textbooks, including POETRY: A Harper Collins Pocket Anthology, Best American Poetry, and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best. Two of her books, Stars at Noon (poetry) and Imaginary Men (short fiction), were the subject of feature interviews on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In 2013, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the Florida Humanities Council.

Several of her books have been awarded major prizes. Imaginary Men received the Iowa Fiction Prize as well as the LSU/Southern Review Prize, both given annually for the best first collection of short fiction by an American author. She received the Gold Medal in Fiction from the State of Florida for Tourist Season (Random House, 2007), which was also chosen for Barnes & Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers Series.” Stalking the Florida Panther (The Word Works) won the Washington Prize. Her anthology, All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women, won a bronze medal in the IPPY Awards. Other awards include two fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, three fellowships from the State of Florida, the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry, the Celia B. Wagner Award of the Poetry Society of America, the Randall Jarrell Prize, the Wildwood Prize, the Eve of St. Agnes Prize, the H.E. Frances Prize, the Iowa Woman Prize, the Emily Clark Balch Prize from Virginia Quarterly Review, the Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, and the Guy Owen Poetry Prize from Southern Poetry Review. Enid also served as the Poetry Editor for University of Arkansas Press for many years.

Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Paris Review, The New Criterion, Kenyon Review, Tikkun, etc. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Modern Maturity, Midstream, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, etc. Her poem sequence “Pope Joan,” was adapted into a dance oratorio by composer Anne LeBaron and choreographer Mark Taylor. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Women’s Review of Books, Moment, and elsewhere.

Published Works

Poetry

Riptide (Blair, 2026)
Shoreless (Persea Books, 2020)
All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women (Carolina Wren/John Blair, 2018)
Driving Through the Animal (chapbook; Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2016)
Stars at Noon: Poems from the Life of Jacqueline Cochran (University of Arkansas Press, 2001)
Black Drum (University of Arkansas Press, 1997)
This Close to Earth (University of Arkansas Press, 1992).
Stalking the Florida Panther (Word Works, 1988)
Florida Postcards (Jubilee Press, 1987)
The Startle Effect (chapbook; American Studies Press, 1983)

Fiction

The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (Simon and Schuster, 2012)
Tourist Season: Stories (Random House, 2007)
Imaginary Men (University of Iowa Press, 1993)

Links to Sample Works

• The Poetry Foundation, “Black Drum”
• Southern Humanities Review, “Rara Omina”
• The New Yorker, “Disappeared”

Languages of Publication(s) and Poets Translated

English

Subject Matter

Aging, Art & Ekphrasis, Childhood, Cultural Identity, Death, Environment & Climate Crisis, Family, Friendship, Grief & Elegy, History, Jewishness, Love, Nature, Sex, Sexuality.

Profile created by Courtney Clute.