Christian Wessels
Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry
PhD, University of Rochester
Research Overview
Christian Wessels is a poet and critic. His first book of poems Who Follow the Gleam won the Juniper Prize for Poetry and was published by University of Massachusetts Press in April 2026. His critical and scholarly work focuses on form and contemporary American poetry. His poems have appeared in The Yale Review, Conjunctions, and The Kenyon Review, among other such outlets; recent scholarship has appeared in Middle Eastern Literatures and Literary Imagination. He lives between Rochester and the northern Black Forest of Germany.
Research Interests
- Lyric Poetry
- Contemporary American Poetry
- Form and Formalism
Selected Publications
Books
- Who Follow the Gleam, University of Massachusetts Press (April 2026)
Teaching
- Courses in poetry
Honors
- Juniper Prize for Poetry (2025)
- Edward Peck Curtis Award for Outstanding Teaching
- Fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Boston University, and the Stadler Center for Poetry