Lois Roma-Deeley

Lois Roma-Deeley, winner of the Samuel T. Coleridge Literary Prize, is the author of three collections of poetry. High Notes, her third collection, is published from Benu Press in 2010, http:/​/​www.benupress.com/​ The book forms the basis of a jazz opera she is writing with composer Christopher Scinto.

Benu Press awards The Samuel T. Coleridge Prize for "an outstanding work of literature, written by a contemporary author, that fulfills Coleridge's vision of the artist as a reconciling architect of the imagination. Such a work invites us to examine our understanding of the world, establishing new meaning in a just future transformed by possibility."

Her second book, northSight (2006), earned her a nod from the Los Angeles Book Prize nominating committee and received critical praise.

Critics have called her poems "brillant," "tough and brave," "poignant," “a vital chorus,” and "soul-satisfying." Literary critic Peter Huggins writes that, in northSight, Roma-Deeley "presents a cast of characters worthy of Dante."

Rules of Hunger, her first full-length poetry collection (2004), earned her a National Book Award nomination.

Roma-Deeley has won numerous awards and honors for her poetry, including awards for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Competition and the Emily Dickinson Poetry Competition, and recognition as a finalist in the Paumanok International Poetry Contest. She has published in ten national anthologies, including forthcoming work in Love Rise Up and Hungers for Old: One-Hundred Years of Italian-American Poetry as well as The American Voice in Poetry: the Legacy of Whitman, Williams, and Ginsberg, American Book Award winner Looking For Home and Letters to the World and others.

In addition, Roma-Deeley was nominated for Arizona Governor's Arts Awards and the Pushcart award. She has been a finalist for the Emerging Writers fellowship.

Further, her work has been featured in--or are forthcoming in-- numerous literary journals nationwide, including,5 AM ,Studio,Superstition Review, Artful Dodge, Italian Americana, Paterson Literary Review, Water~Stone, Iris, Faultline, Columbia Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Elixir, Controlled Burn, Confluence, Sow's Ear (competition finalist), Iris, and many others. Her work appears on BestPoem.com.

In collaborations with visual artists on several ekphrasis projects—most recently with visual artist and curator Beth Shadur—Roma-Deeley’s poems have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

In November of 2004 and 2005, Roma-Deeley was one of several featured poets participating in the interdisciplinary project called "A Poetic Dialogue: Poetry: Women: Art," a Chicago Humanities Festival event. In 2006, her work was featured in the Poetic Dialogue event hosted at the International Conference on Arts in Society at the University of Edinburgh, and published in the International Journal for Arts in Society. The poetry/​visual art collaboration project has toured nationally, including at the Transconference at the University of Wisconsin, as well as internationally. She is working with curator Beth Shadur on the third Poetic Dialogue project, "Collaborative Vision." This pairing of 31 poets and visual artists is a featured show at the Chicago Cultural Center from January through April 2009.

Further, one of Roma-Deeley's poems was featured on Beth Shadur's work as part of the "Cool Globes" project in Chicago, an innovative public art project of 124 globes designed to create awareness and inspire solutions to global warming. Cool Globes was on display along Chicago's lakefront from June to September, 2007.

The poetic sequence "Voices From The Aftermath: New York City Requiem" (northSight, Singularity Press, 2006) was put to music by composer Christopher Scinto and sung by the Phoenix Chorale (formerly Phoenix Bach Choir) in a special "Remembrance" concert for the fifth anniversary of 9/​11. Currently, she is working on a jazz opera with composer Scinto.

In 2008, Roma-Deeley won the "Making a Difference for Women Award" from the Soroptimist International of Phoenix organization.

Roma-Deeley has published six poetry book reviews in several literary journals, as well as serving for ten years as poetry co-editor for PKP Forum (formerly National Forum).

She has been a fellow at the Ragdale Foundation many times. Roma-Deeley has received grants for her writing from "Poets and Writers," Chicago Humanities Festival, Scottsdale Cultural Council and Tempe Cultural Council.

Roma-Deeley has taught creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 25 years. She has given poetry readings nationwide, including: Bowling Green State University, University of Wisconsin--Waukesha, Arizona State University (main, west and east campuses), Northern Arizona Book Festival, AWP Conference in Atlanta, West End Reading Series in Ithaca, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, Clearwater Flordia Public Library, Harold Washington College, Phoenix College, Austin Community College, Mesa Community College, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Changing Hands Bookstore, Book Stall Bookstore, Antigone Bookstore, Biblio Books, Reader's Oasis, Borders, Phoenix Writers Club, ARC Gallery, ARTFIT, Scottsdale Museum of Modern Art, Scottsdale Cultural Council and many others.


She is available for readings, seminars and creative writing workshops.