Amy Dryansky

Artist Statement

Amy (she/her) was born in Cleveland and raised by Socialists who valued art as expression and resistance and grew up in Syracuse, New York, at a time of social and political unrest, but also of hope and optimism. She has tried to carry that optimism, activism and connection to community with her throughout her time as an artist, along with a love of play, formal precision, and a deep connection with the natural world. “Aha, she cried, as she cracked her wooden leg!,” a quote from one of her favorite childhood books, Where the Lilies Bloom, by Vera and Bill Cleaver, is probably her favorite line ever written. Amy will work on her fourth collection of poems while at Marble House, inspired in part by her experience caring for her late partner, who had ALS.

Amy Dryansky_Book Cover, Grass Whistle_Cover artwork by Barbara Reid

Bio

Amy Dryansky (she/her) earned a BFA with a focus on Painting and Philosophy of Art from Syracuse University and an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College,. Her first book, How I Got Lost So Close to Home, won the New England/New York Award from Alice James Books. Her second, Grass Whistle (Salmon Poetry) received the Massachusetts Book Award. Individual poems appear in Adroit Journal, Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, MER, New England Review, Orion, Radar, The Sun, Tin House, Waxwing and other journals, as well as several anthologies. She’s a former poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, received the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and two artist fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She parents two children, works as a grant writer and occasionally teaches creative writing, most recently as the James Merrill Visiting Poet at Amherst College.

amydryansky.com