Adrian Matejka (born 1971) is an American poet and editor. He is the editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine, a position he has held since 2022. He is the author of six poetry collections and the graphic novel Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century. His poetry collection The Big Smoke won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.; ; Matejka served as Indiana poet laureate from 2018 to 2019.
Life Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1971 and grew up in California and Indianapolis, Indiana. He received a BA from Indiana University Bloomington in 1995 and an MFA from SIU in 2001.
Matejka's third collection, The Big Smoke, is about the boxer Jack Johnson. The book was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and won a 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
Matejka has taught literature and creative writing at Indiana University Bloomington. He served as Indiana poet laureate from 2018 to 2019. In 2022, he became editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine. The Poetry Foundation described him as the first Black editor to lead the magazine.
Honors and awards 2003: New York/New England Award for The Devil's Garden. 2008: National Poetry Series, for Mixology. 2011: Lannan Foundation residency. 2013: National Book Award for Poetry finalist, for The Big Smoke. 2014: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, for The Big Smoke. 2014: Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, for The Big Smoke. 2014: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry finalist, for The Big Smoke. 2014: Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry. 2014: Lannan Literary Fellowship for poetry. 2015: United States Artists fellowship. 2015: Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award regional award. 2019: Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. 2019: National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in poetry. 2022: UNT Rilke Prize finalist, for Somebody Else Sold the World. 2022: Indiana Authors Award poetry shortlist, for Somebody Else Sold the World.
Other honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Julia Peterkin Award, two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, a Cave Canem fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellowship.
Works Poetry collections The Devil's Garden. Alice James Books. 2003. . Mixology. Penguin Books. 2009. . The Big Smoke. Penguin Books. 2013. . Map to the Stars. Penguin Books. 2017. . Somebody Else Sold the World. Penguin Books. 2021. . Be Easy: New and Selected Poems. Liveright. 2026. .
Graphic nonfiction Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century, with Youssef Daoudi. Liveright. 2023. .
Anthology contributions "Understanding Al Green", in Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady and Camille T. Dungy, eds., Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. University of Michigan Press. 2006. .
References
External links
Indiana University faculty website