Cole Swensen is a poet and translator. She is the author of twenty books of poetry, most recently Veer (Alice James Books, 2026) and And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was longlisted for the Griffin Prize. A former Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Iowa Poetry Prize, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series, she has also been a finalist for the National Book Award and twice for the LA Times Book Award.

As a translator of poetry, creative prose, and art criticism from French, she has translated over 30 books, several of which have been finalists for a number of awards; others have won awards such as the 2004 PEN USA Award in Translation, the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award, and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Prize. She was also awarded the 2025 Paul Engle Award for literary citizenship by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature.

Her work, in teaching as well as in writing, is engaged with the visual arts and focuses on expanding the field of ekphrasis. Her work advocates moving beyond an ekphrasis of “looking at” a work of art to one committing to “living with” art—in all the many forms that that might take.

Among the visual arts, her predominant interest is in landscape and in the ways that the landscape arts can address ecological concerns. From extending awareness to engaging in reparations, many contemporary artists are concretely addressing ecological concerns, and one of Swensen’s interests is in finding ways for poetry to collaborate with such works, either explicitly or implicitly, and to create ways to support what such artists are doing.

While Swensen’s work is often based in research, it is never collaged. Any words from the works of others are always indicated by italics or quotation marks and are clearly cited at the end of each book.

Swensen taught for seven years at the University of Denver, then for ten years on the faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, followed by twelve years in the Literary Arts Department of Brown University, serving as Department Chair for six of them. She currently divides her time between France and California.