Grailing Press is thrilled to announce Ben Niles as the Poet-in-Residence for Grailing Magazine for the 2023-2024 year. The residency means Grailing readers can expect to see lots of Ben's poems over the course of this residency and become acquainted with his gift for phrase, for noticing, and for moving readers with his verse. To kickoff the residency, two of Ben's poems will appear in the inaugural issue of Grailing, and more poems will follow throughout the rest of 2023 and through 2024.
Ben is an extraordinary new poet with a great future ahead of him and Grailing is excited to be the first outlet to publish his work. Also in the works for Ben and Grailing is a collaboration featuring Ben's annotated book list of 150 titles readers ought not to miss in a lifetime. Readers can look out for Ben's incredible poetry and annotated book list in issues of Grailing.
Here is a bit of a bio of our new resident poet—
Though more of his youth was spent not reading but simply messing about in boats like Water Rat from The Wind in the Willows, or playing basketball like Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Ben Niles caught the literature bug—as many, but not enough, do—thanks to a transcendent high school English teacher. At Harvard, Ben studied English & American Literature and Language and became a teacher himself after graduation; it remains to be seen whether any of his students found him transcendent. He went on to earn his Master’s degree from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, where he spent five glorious summers reading and writing at Bread Loaf’s campuses in Vermont, western North Carolina, and Oxford. Now an avid reader and occasional writer, Ben lives in Boston with his wife, Sophie, and their dog, Roo.