About Ava Leavell Haymon

Ms. Haymon is a poet, playwright, and teacher. Her poems have appeared in the journals Poetry, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and many others; in five chapbooks from independent small presses; and in three collections, The Strict Economy of Fire, Kitchen Heat, and Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread, from Louisiana State University Press. She holds the Louisiana Literature prize for poetry in 2003 and the L. E. Phillabaum Prize for 2010. She teaches poetry writing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during the academic year and in New Mexico in the summer, where she directs a retreat center for writers and artists. She has directed workshops and read her poems widely, in the United States and in Canada. Her plays are written for adults to perform for children, seven of them produced by Playmakers of Baton Rouge, in children’s theaters and schools throughout south Louisiana, and one by a children’s theater workshop in Houston, Texas. She and her husband Cordell Haymon live in Baton Rouge.

Website: http://avahaymon.com

BOOKS OF POETRY


Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread (Louisiana State University Press, 2010)

Kitchen Heat (Louisiana State University Press, 2006)

The Strict Economy of Fire (Louisiana State University Press, 2004)

POEMS