C. L. O'Dell was born in the Hudson Valley. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, and the New Statesman, among others. A recent semi-finalist for the 92Y's Discovery Poetry Contest and the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prize, his poem “My Father Named the Trees” was selected by Dorianne Laux for the Best New Poets anthology. He is founder and editor of The Paris-American.

Recent Poems

---

"under each slab of darkness,
an infant bit of light was still learning how to turn
​into nothing"

— from "While Lying on the Back of a Blue Whale"