Jeff Worley

Jeff Worley, Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2019-2021, is the author of six books of poetry and an anthology from University Press of Kentucky titled What Comes Down to Us: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets. His book The Only Time There Ism> won the Mid-List Press first-book competition. Happy Hour at the Two Keys Tavern was named 2006 Kentucky Book of the Year in Poetry, won the 2006 Society of Midland Authors Award, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Worley has received numerous other awards for his writing, including three Al Smith Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship; over 500 of his poems have appeared in literary magazines and journals. He divides his time between Lexington and a cabin at Cave Run Lake.