Established in memory of poet and editor Ron Offen, the Ron Offen Poetry Prize brings one Chicago poet to campus each year for a public reading. In addition, the Program in Creative Writing administers a call for submissions from students, who can submit 3–5 pages of original work for a chance to be selected by the visiting poet to be introduced by and read alongside them at the event. The Ron Offen Poetry Prize series is a wonderful opportunity for the creative writing community to celebrate its students' achievements and for students to share their work and connect with established Chicago-area poets.
In 2027, the Ron Offen Poetry Prize visiting poet is Callie Siskel, who will read on February 23, 2027.
Callie Siskel is the author of the poetry collection Two Minds (W. W. Norton, 2024) and the chapbook Arctic Revival, selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the Poetry Society of America. Her poems appear in the Atlantic, New York Review of Books, and Paris Review. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is currently a Dornsife Fellow in General Education at the University of Southern California and a poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Past Offen & Student Poets
2026
Offen Poet: Imani Elizabeth Jackson
Student Poet: Noam Levinsky
2025
Offen Poet: Jose-Luis Moctezuma
Student Poet: Shiyang Su
2024
Offen Poet: Ari Banias
Student Poet: Hanxue Jiang
2023
Offen Poet: Erika L. Sánchez
Student Poet: Michael Sun
2022
Offen Poet: Charif Shanahan
Student Poet: Sarah Hobin
2021
Offen Poet: Krista Franklin
Student Poet: Sarah Kim
2020
Offen Poet: Jennifer Nelson
Student Poet: Sophia YoungSun Rhee
2019
Offen Poet: Nate Marshall
Student Poets: Felix Lecocq and Urvi Kumbhat
2018
Offen Poet: Duriel E. Harris
Student Poet: Kirsten Ihns
2017
Offen Poet: Roger Reeves
Student Poet: Emily Yoon
2016
Offen Poet: Ed Roberson
Student Poet: Eli Rudavsky
2015
Offen Poet: Daniel Borzutzky
Student Poet: Tim DeMay
2014
Offen Poet: William Fuller
Student Poet: Dawn Herrera Helphand
2013
Offen Poet: Ilya Kaminsky
Student Poet: V. Joshua Adams