Kathy Engel is a poet, essayist, educator, organizer and cultural worker. Her latest poetry collection, The Lost Brother Alphabet, was published by Get Fresh Books in 2020. Kathy’s poems, essays, and reviews have been published and anthologized widely, and she has presented her writing in numerous workshops, talks, and readings.
For over 40 years Kathy has worked in many of the major social justice, peace, and human rights movements in the U.S. and in partnership with international groups. She has co-founded numerous organizations, including MADRE (1983), an international women’s human rights group, which she directed for five years. She also co-founded the Hayground School; East End Women in Black; Kickass Artists, Poets for Ayiti; and, with the poet Alexis De Veaux, Lyrical Democracies and The Center for Poetic Healing. Kathy has been a resident at MacDowell, Blue Mountain Center, the Gaia Sea Change Residency and the Hedgebrook Women Writers Residency. She is currently working on a new poetry collection, and a memoir about her life as a poet, organizer and cultural worker, entitled Marvelous Dissonance.
