Wesley McNair

Wesley McNair is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, two books of nonfiction, a memoir, and the editor of eight anthologies. Often referred to as “a poet of place,” McNair captures the ordinary lives of northern New Englanders while writing about family conflict and other autobiographical subjects. His poems explore American dreams interwoven with family drama and public culture.

A New Hampshire native who has lived for many years in Maine, McNair McNair’s books have received many accolades over the years. Most recently, Late Wonders: New & Selected Poems was a finalist for the 2023 Patterson Poetry Prize; Dwellers in the House of the Lord was a finalist for the 2020 New England Book Award for Poetry; and The Lost Child was the recipient of the 2015 PEN New England Award for Poetry.

Other honors include the Robert Frost Prize; the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry (for Fire); the Devins Award for poetry; the Eunice Teitjens Prize from Poetry magazine; the Theodore Roethke prize from Poetry Northwest; the Pushcart Prize, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal for his “distinguished contribution to the world of letters.” He has received five honorary degrees for literary distinction.

McNair is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in literature, two Rockefeller fellowships for creative work at the Bellagio Center in Italy, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships for Creative Writers, and a United States Artists Fellowship.

McNair has twice been invited to read his poetry by the Library of Congress and has given readings at a wide range of colleges and universities. He received an Emmy Award as scriptwriter for a series on Robert Frost that appeared on affiliates of PBS. Featured on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition (Saturday and Sunday programs) and 23 times on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, his work has appeared in the Pushcart Prize Annual (for which he was a poetry editor in 2010), two editions of the Best American Poetry series, and more than sixty anthologies and textbooks. He has served five times on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Some of the magazines and journals in which his poems and essays have appeared are: Agni, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Poetry Review, Five Points, Gettysburg Review, Green Mountain Review, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, Margie: An American Journal of Verse, Mid-American Review, New Criterion, New England Review, Ohio Review, The Paris Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry International, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Sewanee Review, Slate, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Witness, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Yankee.

Wesley McNair served as Maine Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2026. He is currently Professor Emeritus and Writer in Residence at the University of Maine at Farmington, where he directed the creative writing program and received the Distinguished Faculty Award and the Libra Professorship. He also served as a visiting professor in creative writing at Dartmouth and at Colby College, which acquired his personal papers in 2006.