Literature
francine j. harris
· poet
Detroit-born poet whose Here Is the Sweet Hand won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award and whose debut, allegiance, came out from Wayne State University Press.
- Birth name
- Francine J. Harris
- Also known as
- Francine J. Harris
- Field
- Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Harris is originally from Detroit, and the city's streets, violence, tenderness and ruin run through her first book, allegiance (2012), published by Wayne State University Press in its Made in Michigan series and a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her second collection, play dead (2016), won the Lambda Literary Award and the Audre Lorde Award, and Here Is the Sweet Hand (2020) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. She has been a writer-in-residence with Detroit's InsideOut Literary Arts program and later taught at universities around the country; in 2025 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She writes her name in lowercase.
Highlights
- National Book Critics Circle Award (2020) for Here Is the Sweet Hand
- play dead (2016): Lambda Literary Award and Audre Lorde Award
- Debut allegiance (2012) from Wayne State University Press
- Guggenheim Fellow (2025)