Dan Bellm lives in Berkeley, California. His two latest books (spring 2023) are the poetry chapbook Counting from Finishing Line Press, and his translation from Spanish of Mexican poet Balam Rodrigo’s Central American Book of the Dead from FlowerSong Press. His earlier books of poems include Deep Well (Lavender Ink, 2017) and Practice (Sixteen Rivers, 2008), winner of the 2009 California Book Award, and his translations include Speaking in Song, by Pura López Colomé (Shearsman Books, 2017), and The Song of the Dead, by Pierre Reverdy (Black Square Editions, 2016). Dan has taught literary translation and poetry in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles, at Mills College, and at New York University. He serves as a volunteer interpreter and translator for refugees and asylum seekers with Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland.
Honors and awards
Fellow, inaugural writers’ conference of Yetzirah: a hearth for Jewish poetry, Asheville, NC, 2023
National Endowment for the Arts, Artist’s Fellowship in Translation, for The Song of the Dead, 2013
California Book Award in Poetry, for Practice, 2009
Artist Residencies at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York, 2007, 2012, 2014, and 2019
Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, Newark, New Jersey. Featured festival reader, 2012
Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize, for Buried Treasure, 1998
Alice Fay DiCastagnola Award, Poetry Society of America, for Buried Treasure, 1998
California Arts Council, Artists Fellowship in Literature, 1997-1998