Cecily Parks

Cecily Parks is an American poet and professor. She is author of three poetry collections: The Seeds (Alice James Books, 2025); O’Nights (Alice James Books, 2015); and Field Folly Snow (University of Georgia Press, 2008).

Biography Parks was born in 1976. She attended Rice University and graduated in 1999. As an undergraduate, Parks contributed reporting to The Rice Thresher and developed an interest in poetry during her senior year after taking a workshop. Following her graduation, she received her MA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars in 2000.

Parks later earned her Master of Fine Arts in poetry at Columbia University and received her PhD at Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she wrote a dissertation on American women writers and swamps.

In 2020, Parks contributed spoken-word poetry to Stuart Hyatt's album Ultrasonic on the closing track, “Between the Hawthorn and Extinction.” The song was described by Tony Rehagen of Indianapolis Monthly as a "spoken-word ode to the endangered [Indiana] bat that leans toward lament." The poem was previously published in Orion under the title "The Indiana Bats."

She currently lives in Austin, Texas, where she is an associate professor at the Texas State University MFA program for creative writing.

Honors and awards 2005: New York Chapbook Fellowship 2008: Finalist, Norma Farber First Book Award 2016: Pushcart Prize 2019: The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award 2022, 2021, 2020 inclusions in The Best American Poetry 2026: Finalist, PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry

Published works Poetry collections Parks, C. G. (2025). The Seeds. New Gloucester, Maine: Alice James Books. Parks, C. (2015). O’Nights. Farmington, Maine: Alice James Books. Parks, C. (2008). Field Folly Snow. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.

Chapbooks Parks, C. (2005). Cold Work. New York, New York: Poetry Society of America.

Anthologies edited Parks, C. (2025). Best New Poets 2025. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press. Parks, C. (2016). The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. New York, New York, United States: Everyman's Library Pocket Poets.