Santos, Sherod, 1948-

Sherod Santos (born September 9, 1948 in South Carolina) is an American poet, essayist, translator and playwright. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recentlyThe Burning World (Arrowsmith Press) in 2024, and Square Inch Hours (W.W. Norton) in 2017. Individual poems have appeared in The New Yorker,The Paris Review, The Nation, Poetry, Proscenium Theatre Journal, American Poetry Review, and The New York Times Book Review. His plays have been produced at The Algonquin Theatre in New York City, The Royal Court Theatre in London, The Side Project in Chicago, the Brooklyn International Theatre Festival, and the Flint Michigan Play Festival. Santos also wrote the settings for the Sappho poems in the CD Magus Insipiens, composed by Paul Sanchez and sung by soprano Kayleen Sanchez. His many honors and awards include an Academy Award for Literary Excellence from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in the Humanities, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, the Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize. He was a finalist for The New Yorker Book Award in Poetry as well as The National Book Critics Circle Award and The National Book Award. From 1990 to 1998 he served as external examiner and poet-in-residence at the Poets' House outside Belfast, Northern Ireland. He lives in Santa Fe, where he works with a hunger relief program serving the nine counties of Northern New Mexico.