Sydney Lea

Sydney Lea is an American poet, novelist, essayist, editor, and professor, and was the Poet Laureate of Vermont (2011–15). His most recent book is The Exquisite Triumph of Wormboy (Word/Galaxy, 2020, a graphic mock-epic poem in collaboration with former Vermont Cartoonist Laureate James Kochalka, and he has a thirteenth collection of poetry, Here now out from Four Way Books, 2019. He has taught for the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College, and at Yale University, Wesleyan University, Vermont College, Middlebury College, Franklin University Switzerland, and the National Hungarian University. He founded New England Review in 1977 and edited it till 1989. His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Virginia Quarterly Review. His work across the genres has appeared in some sixty anthologies. He lives in [[Newbury , Vermont. His work "Mudtime" has been set as a long form song cycle for voice and string quartet by the composer Joseph Hallman which the poet described as "a high point of my term as poet laureate. It was so refreshing and so different, a great shot in the arm." It was premiered in 2014 by Hallman's long term collaborator, Abigail Haynes-Lennox and the 802 Quartet at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has since collaborated with the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble on a number of multimedia presentations. Lea was a finalist in poetry for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.