Brian Teare (born 1974) is an American poet. He is the author of The Room Where I Was Born (2003), Sight Map (2009), Pleasure (2010), Companion Grasses (2013), The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven (2015), Doomstead Days (2019) and Poem Bitten by a Man (2023). Teare is queer.
Early life and education Brian Teare was born in Athens, Georgia in 1974, and grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English and creative writing from the University of Alabama, then a Master of Fine Arts from Indiana University Bloomington in 2000.
Career Teare has taught creative writing in the San Francisco Bay Area and at Temple University. As of 2021, he was an associate professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia.
Teare published his debut poetry collection, The Room Where I Was Born, with University of Wisconsin Press in 2003. The collection won the 2003 Thom Gunn Award and Brittingham Prize in Poetry.
In 2008, Teare founded the micropress Albion Books.
Teare's second poetry collection, Sight Map, was published by the University of California Press in 2009.
In 2010, Teare published Pleasure with Ahsahta Press. The collection won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award for Poetry.
Companion Grasses, Teare's fourth poetry collection, was published with Omnidawn Publishing in 2013.Reviews: Slate named it one of the year's best books of poetry. The following year, it was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
Teare's fifth poetry collection, The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven, was published by Ahsahta Press in 2015.
Doomstead Days, Teare's sixth poetry collection, was published by Nightboat Books in 2019.Reviews: That year, it was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry. In 2020, Doomstead Days won the Four Quartets Prize and was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
Teare's seventh poetry collection, Poem Bitten by a Man, was published by Nightboat Books in 2023. In 2024, the collection won the William Carlos Williams Award, and was a finalist for the Thom Gunn Award. It was also nominated for the 2024 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, though Teare withdrew the book from consideration, along with several other authors, due to the organization's response to the Gaza war.
Awards and honors Teare has received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship (2015), Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing, Guggenheim Fellowship (2020), American Antiquarian Society Fellowship and MacDowell Colony residency. +Awards for Teare's writingTitleYearAwardResult2003Brittingham Prize in PoetryWinnerThom Gunn AwardWinnerPleasure2011Lambda Literary Award for Gay PoetryWinnerNorthern California Book Award for PoetryFinalistCompanion Grasses2014Kingsley Tufts Poetry AwardFinalistLambda Literary Award for Gay PoetryFinalistDoomstead Days2019National Book Award for PoetryLonglist2020Kingsley Tufts Poetry AwardFinalistLambda Literary Award for Gay PoetryFinalistNational Book Critics Circle Award for PoetryFinalist, from Doomstead DaysFour Quartets PrizeWinnerPoem Bitten by a Man2024Thom Gunn AwardFinalistWilliam Carlos Williams AwardWinner
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