Remembering Lee Sharkey

Lee Sharkey (poetry ’91) passed away earlier this month at the age of 75.  She was the author of Calendars of Fire (Tupelo Press, 2013) and three other full-length collections. Her poems appeared in Crazyhorse, Field, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and Seattle Review, and she served as coeditor of the Beloit Poetry Journal. 

Across a long career as a writer and publisher, her recognitions included the Abraham Sutzkever Centennial Translation Prize, the Maine Arts Commission’s Fellowship in Literary Arts, the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the RHINO Editor’s Prize, the Shadowgraph Poetry Prize, and Zone 3’s Rainmaker Award in Poetry. 

Lee Sharkey recently completed a final volume of poems, “I Will Not Name It Except to Say.” Tupelo Press will publish the book in 2021.