Visiting Writers Series: Ariana Reines
Bio:
Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, Obie-winning playwright, performing artist, and translator.
Her most recent books are The Rose (Graywolf, 2025), which Chris Kraus called “thrilling and harrowing,” and Wave of Blood, published in the UK in 2024 by Divided Publishing. Her other books include A Sand Book (Tin House, 2019), winner of the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Prize & longlisted for the National Book Award, The Cow (Alberta Prize, 2006), Coeur De Lion (2007), and Mercury (2011), all from Fence Books, and The Origin of the World (2014) from Semiotext(e). Her Obie-winning play Telephone (2009) was commissioned by The Foundry Theatre and has been performed and published in Norwegian translation at the Mollebyen Literary Festival (2017) and at KW Berlin (2018) among others.
Reines’ performances & theatrical works include: Mortal Kombat (2015), commissioned by Le Mouvement Biel/Bienne & performed at The Whitney Museum, New York, NY, USA, and Gallery TPW, Toronto, CA, and Lorna (2013) at Martin E. Segal Theatre, New York, USA, both in collaboration with Jim Fletcher, The Origin of the World (2013) at Modern Art, London UK, and many others. Art exhibitions include Pubic Space (2016), a collaboration with Oscar Tuazon at Modern Art in London, UK, Exhaust (2016) at Contemporary Art Tasmania, AU, and Jane Dark (2014) at Western Front, Vancouver, Canada.
Reines is the translator of Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (Mal-O-Mar, 2009); Jean-Luc Hennig’s The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore (Semiotext(e) 2009); and Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young Girl (Semiotext(e) 2012).
She has taught poetry at Columbia University, the European Graduate School, NYU, Tufts, Naropa, The New School, Yale & many others, and has also taught workshops at beloved community organizations including The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church and Poets House.
About the Visiting Writers Series:
Now in its sixty-second year, the nationally-renowned Visiting Writers Series at UMass Amherst presents emerging and established writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The series is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action, and is made possible with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the University of Massachusetts Arts Council, and the English Department.
