Henk Rossouw

Henk Rossouw's debut Xamissa, published by Fordham University Press in 2018, won the Poets Out Loud Editor's Prize. The African Poetry Book Fund included his chapbook The Water Archives in the 2018 box set New-Generation African Poets. Poems have appeared in POETRY, The Paris Review, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry Northwest, World Literature Today, Boston Review, among other places. He teaches at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he co-directs the UL Creative Writing Program. He's an associate editor for Tupelo Quarterly.

PhD, 2017
University of Houston

MFA, 2011
University of Massachusetts Amherst

BA, 2005
University of the Witwatersrand

Dr. Rossouw's research interests are in poetry and ecopoetics.

Opportunities for Student Research:

• Writing Poetry Manuscripts
• Critical Essays on Poetry

Opportunities for Student Collaboration:

• UL Lafayette Creative Writing Program
• The Southwestern Review

Book:

Xamissa. Fordham University Press, 2018, www.fordhampress.com/9780823281107/xamissa

Chapbook:

Xamissa: The Water Archives. In New-Generation African Poets: Tano, A Chapbook Box Set, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani, African Poetry Book Fund and Akashic Books, 2018, https://africanpoetrybf.unl.edu/books/new-generation-african-poets-a-chapbook-box-set-tano/xamissa-the-water-archives/

Selected Journals:

• “Passerine.” POETRY, Sep. 2022., https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/158384/passerine
• “Little Perpetrator (3).” World Literature Today, Mar. 2022, https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2022/march/little-perpetrator-3-henk-rossouw
• “Cape Panopticon.” Quarterly West, no. 99, 2020, https://www.quarterlywest.com/issue-99/rossouw
• “Elegy for the Gesture.” Poetry Daily, 23 Jun. 2019, https://poems.com/poem/elegy-for-the-gesture/
• “From Xamissa: Roggebaai.jpeg.” Blackbird, Virginia Commonwealth University, vol. 17, no. 1.,
• blackbird.vcu.edu/v17n1/poetry/rossouw-h/roggebaai-page.shtml
• “From Xamissa: Rearrival, Parts 1-3.” The Common, Amherst College, 11 Jul. 2016,
• www.thecommononline.org/july-2016-poetry-feature/
• “Sonnet for My Son.” Boston Review, vol. 39, no. 1, 2014, p. 74,
• bostonreview.net/poetry/henk-rossouw-sonnet-my-son
• “The Dream of The Road.” Paris Review, no. 205, 2013, pp. 237-238,
• www.theparisreview.org/poetry/6245/the-dream-of-the-road-henk-rossouw

Reviews of Xamissa:

• Kempf, Christopher. “Review of Xamissa, by Henk Rossouw.” Colorado Review, 30 Apr. 2019, coloradoreview.colostate.edu/reviews/xamissa/
• Colditz, Keenan. “Book Review: Xamissa, by Henk Rossouw.” Poetry International, 8 Dec. 2018, poetryinternationalonline.com/book-review-xamissa-by-henk-rossouw/
• Darling, Kristina Marie. “‘Spare This Body, Set Fire to Another’: Speech and Silence in Work by Kaveh Akbar, Brenna Womer, and Henk Rossouw.” Kenyon Review, 7 Nov. 2018 kenyonreview.org/2018/11/spare-this-body-set-fire-to-another-speech-silence-in-work-by-kaveh-akbar-brenna-womer-henk-rossouw/

• 2017 Poets Out Loud Editor’s Prize, Poetic Justice Institute, Fordham University Press 
• 2009 Poetry Society of America, Bright Lights Big Verse Contest
• 2006 Tin House/Summer Literary Seminars First Prize, Fiction