Matt Rasmussen ’98Alumni and Faculty

I graduated from Gustavus the year of the tornado and am a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Papua New Guinea '99-'01). I'm the author of Black Aperture, which was selected by Jane Hirshfield as the winner of the 2013 Walt Whitman Award. Black Aperture was also awarded the 2014 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the National Book Award.  My poems have been published in The Literary Review, Gulf Coast, Water~Stone Review, Revolver, Paper Darts, Poets.org and elsewhere. I've received grants and residencies from the McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome Foundation, The Anderson Center, and The Corporation of Yaddo. I received a 2014 Pushcart Prize and was awarded the 2015 Holmes National Poetry Prize by the creative writing faculty at Princeton University.  I'm a founder and editor of the independent poetry press Birds, LLC and I live in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. You can find links to poems and reviews at: www.mattrasmussen.net

Courses Taught