Rachel Jihye Han is a poet and musician based in Brooklyn. She received an M.F.A. in poetry from Rutgers-Newark University where she currently teaches English and poetry. A 2022 Hawthornden Castle Fellow and 2023 New York Foundation of the Arts Grant Recipient, her work has appeared in Narrative, Pleiades, Interim, Conduit, and the LA Korea Times, among
others.
At MacDowell, Han began writing her second manuscript while completing her first collection of poems, I AM RETURNING FOR THE BODY, published with Switchback Books in 2025 and winner of the 2024 Gatewood Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize (2022 and 2023), Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize (2023), and Futurepoem Open (2022).
While writing poems, she also composed music with her voice, violin, keys, and guitar.
