Sandra Beasley

Biography

Sandra Beasley is the author of Count the Waves (Norton, 2015); I Was the Jukebox (Norton, 2010), winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling (New Issues, 2008); and the disability memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life (Crown, 2011). She is the editor of Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance (Georgia, 2018). She lives in Washington, DC, and teaches with the University of Tampa low-residency MFA program.  

See Work

ESSAYS / Winter 2018

Calculated Risks

By Sandra Beasley ,  Illustrations by Melinda Josie

After chatting about his child’s food allergies for ten minutes, that distinctive ache has stirred at the back of my throat. Yet I say nothing. The restaurant manager has been kind. He prides himself on taking care of customers like me...
POETRY / Summer 2013

The Circus

By Sandra Beasley

In the halls of Pigalle, juxtaposition is not intimacy. 
Moulin Rouge Moulin Rouge Moulin
Red—Louise the Glutton spread high in her kick, 

POETRY / Fall 2012

“The Offer Will Not Be Repeated”

By Sandra Beasley

Two men walk on a path. 
One has a blade in his pocket.
We do not know if the edge

POETRY / Fall 2012

“Cotton Is Rising”

By Sandra Beasley

If hunting a lion, the weight of one’s gaze will scare it off. 
So one must always close his eyes before hunting a lion. 

POETRY / Fall 2012

“I Shall Not Walk, But Ride”

By Sandra Beasley

She went to Zurich to rescue a man.
She’d made all the necessary maps. 
Paul Klee would’ve painted this woman

POETRY / Fall 2012

“What Is the Wholesale Price of The Traveler’s Vade Mecum?”

By Sandra Beasley

I intend to converse with many. None in the same room.
I have a daughter to search for, an acre of farmland to sell.
I must confirm that flour is falling and copper is rising;