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"I love the music of Lauren Camp’s poems… the alliteration and assonance, the layers of sound and imagery… these poems are filled with experiences that left me exhilarated with longing."
— Connotation Press
About Lauren
Lauren Camp served as New Mexico Poet Laureate from 2022-2025. She is the author of nine books, most recently Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026) and In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park.
As Poet Laureate, she founded the New Mexico Epic Poem Project, a community-centered, crowd-sourced initiative designed to help people in rural and arts-underserved communities express themselves. Undertaken in partnership with New Mexico Arts, the Project reached 29 of the state’s 33 counties.
Her signature project, “ Poetry Under the Stars,” is an experience. Lauren voices poems about the cosmos from across time and cultures to audiences outside in the dark. An advocate for preserving dark skies, she has presented this program at five national parks, planetariums and other venues. “Poetry Under the Stars” encourages people to slow down, look and listen.
She has been honored with fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, a Dorset Prize, the New Mexico Book Award, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, Big Other Book Award, and Adrienne Rich Award. She has been writer-in-residence at Lowell Observatory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Hedgebrook, Denver Botanic Gardens, Storyknife, and The Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Center. Lauren has focused on teaching in community and was recently the Pearl S. Buck Writer-in-Residence and faculty for The Frost Place Poetry Seminar.
Her poems and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Nation, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Orion, Missouri Review, and Poem-a-Day. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Mandarin, Serbian, Arabic, French, and Spanish.
She pivoted from a successful career as a visual artist (1996-2008). Her portrait series, “The Fabric of Jazz,” traveled to museums in ten cities. More artwork can be found in cultural centers, hospitals, museums, U.S. embassies, and other organizations around the world. For 15 years, she was a producer and host for “Audio Saucepan,” a jazz and poetry program on Santa Fe Public Radio.