James Davis May

James Davis May is the author of two LSU Press poetry collections, most recently Unusually Grand Ideas, which was named to the Georgia Center for the Book's list of Books All Georgians Should Read and shortlisted for the 2024 Julie Suk Award for Best Poetry Book Published by a Literary Press. 

He’s the winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, the Foley Prize, and the Rattle Poetry Prize’s Readers’ Choice Award, and he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. 

Originally from Pittsburgh, he now lives in Macon, Georgia, where he directs the creative writing program at Mercer University.