Wendell Hawken came to poetry late in life earning her MFA from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers decades after her Vassar College BA. Her time in the Warren Wilson MFA program, founded by Ellen Bryant Voigt, changed her life with its brilliance and rigor, and gave her a lifelong place in the Wally tribe.
To date, her publications include two chapbooks and five full collections. From a Spit Seed is her sixth.
In 2023, Hawken was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Millwood VA, an unincorporated quirky village in the northern Shenandoah Valley where she lives on a grass farm with two Labradoodles and a rescued beagle named Beagle. She promotes poetry with quarterly open-mic gatherings, posting poems in public spaces, and writing poems to commemorate community events.
Paperback: 90 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (October 28, 2025)