Isabella DeSendi
Through the New Body
Winner of Poetry Society of America’s
30 and Under Chapbook Fellowship
“DeSendi’s poetry is generous. It tells you where you are, even when that where is a space of limbo....We are in limbo, because we are in the world in the body of a girl-becoming-woman, an American with Cuban matrilineage, a sufferer who causes suffering. Autobiographical or not, these poems give us a figure who seeks to understand her own distress in relation to that experienced by women of different ages and backgrounds.”
Poems
“My Death Urge is Strong (Self Portrait at 30)” republished in Best New Poets 2024
“Once, While Disemboweling the Chicken” in POETRY, 2024
“Ars Poetica en el Museo del Prado” in The Adroit Journal, 2024
“Buffalo” in Poetry Northwest, 2024
“Eurydice” in Brink, 2024
“Eve’s Protest” in Rattle, 2024
“Elegy for Tio Lazaro” in Rattle, 2024
“My Death Urge is Strong (Self Portrait at 30)” in Brooklyn Poets Feature
“Herodias” in The Ekphrastic Review
Reprinted on Poetry Society of America website
“America’s First Female Muslim Judge Found Floating in a River” in Narrative Magazine
Reprinted in Palette Poetry
“Hippocampus” in Palette Poetry
“Una Poema Para Latinas” in Peace is Loud
“Reprise” in Small Orange
“Self Portrait as a Younger Self” in Leveler
“After the Bar” in Two Peach
“Instructions for Skinning Deer” in The Grief Diaries
“Sussex County” and “Elision” in Appalachian Review
Photo Credit: Matthew Haring
About Isabella
Isabella DeSendi is a Latina poet and educator whose work has been published in POETRY, The Adroit Journal, Poetry Northwest and others. Her debut poetry collection titled "Someone Else's Hunger" will be published by Four Way Books in 2025. Her chapbook "Through the New Body" won the Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship and was published in 2020. Recently, she has been named a New Jersey poetry Fellow, was included in the 2024 Best New Poets anthology, and has been named a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship and Rattle’s $15,000 Poetry Prize among other awards. Isabella has attended Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop, the Storyknife Writers’ Residency in Alaska, and holds an MFA from Columbia University. She currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Awards & Accolades
- 2025 New Jersey Fellowship Recipient
- 2024 Best New Poets
- 2024 Ruth Lilly Fellowship Finalist
- 2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee
- Storyknife Residency Recipient
- Recipient of Brooklyn Poet's Denise Bell Award
- Finalist for Rattle's $15,000 Poetry Prize
- Poet's & Writer's BIPOC Women Writer's Grant
- Poetry Society of America's 30 and Under Chapbook Winner
- Palette's Previously Published Poem Prize Winner
- Palette's Spotlight Award Winner
- Frontier's Chapbook Finalist
- Narrative's Annual Poetry Contest Finalist
- Columbia University June Jordan Fellowship Finalist
- Columbia University Writing Program Scholarship
- NYS Summer Writers Institute Fellowship
![[Brooklyn Poets Weekly Class] Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light: On Anger, Devastation and Frustration in Poetry](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61faace0c5f95f62705f9e44/1681217864347-QBKOG9P0L9NAS60YPPOM/banner-DeSendi.png)
Teaching
Pedagogical Philosophy
My teaching philosophy stems from the rudimentary years I spent learning to decode and demystify poetry. In an attempt to better understand craft and the canon, I realized exploration and discussion were integral to the learning process. Today, whether I'm teaching Creative Writing or English Composition, my pedagogical philosophy is centered on making space for students to work closely with texts, to explore and ask questions. My hope is that by leading students through a variety of creative and analytical exercises, they will leave any class I teach with a mélange of tools that they can continue utilizing in the future. Beyond that, I hope they find comfort knowing that writing is not about discovering every truth, but rather, having the courage and persistence to revise, revisit, and reach forward-- always, against, despite.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you would like to receive a copy of my pedagogical philosophy in its entirety.
Experience
Courses
Columbia University School of the Arts
Creative Writing Workshop Instructor, Summer High School Program
The City University of New York
Test Assessing Secondary Completion (TASC) Course Instructor
Community Word Project
Teaching Artist Fellow
The Armory Foundation
English Tutor and Student Advisor
Brooklyn Poets 8-Week Drop-In Course
Instructor
Masterclasses
Purchase College
Visiting Writing Fellow
Douglas Anderson School of the Arts
Guest Reader and Masterclass Presenter
Contact
Please use this form to contact Isabella.