Dr. Robert Eric Shoemaker is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Eric holds a Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Louisville and an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University. Eric’s work focuses on magical poetics, queer theory and poetry, public history, translation, and gender and sexuality.

Eric has published three books of hybrid poetry, memoir, and playwriting: Ca’Venezia (2021, Partial Press), We Knew No Mortality (2018, Acta Publications), and 30 Days Dry (2015, Thought Collection Publishing). Eric has published scholarly work in Signs and Society, Jacket2, Entropy, and Gender Forum; translations in Asymptote; Exchanges; The Adirondack Review; and Columbia Journal; stage plays in Plath Profiles; poetry in Analogies & Allegories; Tiny Spoon; Bombay Gin; The Gordian Review; Barely South Review; Verde Qué Te Quiero Verde; Kairos; and other journals; prose in Miracle Monocle; and essays in Mount Analogue; Roar; and other journals.

Eric’s play, “Barrens,” a translation of Federico García Lorca’s “Yerma,” won the inaugural Orinda Award for Best New Translated Play from the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America. Eric is also the author of the duet musical “PLATH/HUGHES”, which was awarded the 2014 Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize for Best Play. Eric was awarded the Binford Memorial Award, given to one outstanding doctoral student at the University of Louisville, and was the graduate speaker at his Naropa commencement.

Eric is the Digital Archive Editor at the Poetry Foundation, the Poetry Editor for the interdisciplinary journal Plath Profiles, and serves as a member of the Sarabande Books Young Professionals Board.

Artist’s Statement

Any piece of writing is its own animal.

When I sit down to write, I write for everyone, knowing that not everyone will read or appreciate it.

Writing is recursive, as I keep coming back to it. It’s all in the p(re(writing)).

My work is infused with research, both internal and external, as well as the bones of my ancestors, poetical and blood.

I write from my corner, looking outward.