Celia Gilbert grew up in Washington D.C. She received a B.A. from Smith College and an M.A. from Boston University and was Poetry and Fiction Editor of The Boston Phoenix. Gilbert is the author of four books of poetry, Queen of Darkness, Viking, Bonfire, Alice James Books, an Ark of Sorts, Alice James Books, and Something to Exchange, BlazeVOX{books}, 2009. In 2009 a collection of her work appeared in a Polish-English edition, Cos na wymiane, published in Warsaw under the imprint Czuly Barbarzynca.
Her work has appeared among other places in Poetry, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Southwest Review, and Ploughshares as well as the online journals: Inertia, Memorious and thetowerjournal Her work has been frequently anthologized.
She has won the following prizes: An Ark of Sorts, Alice James Books, and a Jane Kenyon Chapbook award. She is the winner of a Discovery Award from the 92nd St YM-YWHA, a Consuelo Ford Award, and an Emily Dickinson Prize, both from the Poetry Society of America, and the Pushcart Prize IX.
