Adrian Matejka

Adrian Matejka was born in Germany as part of a military family. He is the author of the poetry collections Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin, 2021), a finalist for the UNT 2022 Rilke Prize and the 2022 Indiana Authors Award; Map to the Stars (Penguin, 2017); The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), which was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and 2014
Pulitzer Prize in poetry; Mixology (Penguin, 2009), winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series; and The Devil's Garden (Alice James Books, 2003), which won the New York/New England Award.

He is also the author of the graphic novel Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century (Liveright, 2023), and a mixed media collaboration with Nicholas Galanin and Kevin Neireiter inspired by Funkadelic, Standing on the Verge & Maggot Brain (Third Man Books, 2021).

Among Matejka’s other honors are the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, the Julia Peterkin Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Simon Fellowship from United States Artists. He served as Poet Laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018-19. He currently lives in Chicago and is Editor of Poetry magazine.