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Leslie McGrath Leslie McGrath is a poet, editor, and literary interviewer. She studied first as a clinical psychologist and worked for a number of years as a drug and alcohol counselor, an options trader and an artist’s model before turning to poetry at the age of forty.  McGrath is a trained cook and foodie who uses cooking as a prevailing metaphor for many of her poems, which tend to be sensual and musical, in the vein of Spanish language poetry by Neruda and Borges.  She often uses the dramatic monologue to explore the lives of other women. Her more recent poetry has a more psychological underpinning, focusing on the self and relationships in distress.

Leslie McGrath’s poems have appeared in Agni, Alimentum, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, Connecticut Review, DIAGRAM, Poetry Ireland, Nimrod, and elsewhere. She is also a literary interviewer whose interviews have appeared in The Writers Chronicle and on public radio in the U.S. Winner of the 2004 Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, her chapbook, Toward Anguish, won the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award. McGrath has edited (with Ravi Shankar)Indian American poet Reetika Vazirani's posthumous collection, Radha Says (Drunken Boat, 2010.)  

McGrath’s first collection of poetry, Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, was published by Main Street Rag in 2009. She is Managing editor of Drunken Boat  international online journal of the arts. 

e-mail Leslie

poetry favourites:
Drunken Boat

and in the shop ...
collection -
"Opulent Hunger,
Opulent Rage",
Main Street Rag

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