Olivia Gatwood is a nationally touring poet, performer, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has been featured on HBO and Verses & Flow, as well as in Muzzle Magazine, Bustle and The Huffington Post, among others. She has been a finalist at the National Poetry Slam, Women of the World Poetry Slam, and Brave New Voices. She is a graduate of Pratt Institute’s Fiction Program and currently lives in New York City.
One of the most recognizable young poets in America, Olivia Gatwood dazzles with her tribute to contemporary American womanhood in her debut book, New American Best Friend. Gatwood’s poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy. And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.
“Olivia Gatwood’s New American Best Friend is, more than anything else, a map of growing up. A summer, a schoolyard, a bouquet of sharp and clever odes, an aching undercurrent of grief. Gatwood is at her best here: blending sharp storytelling with attention to craft, making sure each finish line leaves a reader breathless. These are poems that dig into you, build a home, and stay a while.”
-Hanif Abdurraqib, author of The Crown Ain’t Worth Much
Buy Now“In New American Best Friend, Olivia Gatwood slices with a sharp, keen humor into the beguiling and calamitous experience of American adolescence and young adulthood and honors with stamina and edge the most unsung aspects of our female experience. (See “Ode to My Bitch Face,” “Ode to My Period Underwear,” “Ode to the Word Pussy,” for starters.) I simply couldn’t be more enthusiastic about this poet and her work. These poems are the future.”
-Carrie Fountain, author of Burn Lake
