Like a Beggar

Ellen Bass (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a poet whose work bears witness to trauma, the body, mortality, and the irreducible resilience of ordinary life. She received an MA in creative writing from Boston University, where she studied with Anne Sexton. Her collections include Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002), winner of the Lambda Literary Award, The Human Line (Copper Canyon, 2007), and Indigo (Copper Canyon, 2020), a finalist for the National Book Award. She co-authored the widely read self-help book The Courage to Heal (1988). She teaches in the Pacific University MFA program and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA.