Dara Yen Elerath

Dara Yen Elerath’s first book, Dark Braid (BkMk Press, 2020), won the 2019 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming journals such as POETRY, the American Poetry Review, AGNI, Poets.org, Boulevard, High Country News and Poet Lore, among others. She is an alumna of the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing program and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Dara recommends Allison Benis White’s meditation on depression and suicide, Please Bury me in This, as well as Clark Ashton Smith’s linguistically and imaginatively mesmerizing The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. In terms of serial TV viewing, Dara suggests Copenhagen Cowboy.