Peg Boyers

Born in San Tomé, Venezuela, poet Peg Boyers spent her childhood moving from place to place with her middle-class family. Her father was Irish-American and her mother was Cuban by way of Catalan and Basque Spaniards; as a child, Boyers lived in Cuba, Libya, Italy, and Indonesia. Her multifaceted upbringing served as inspiration for much of her creative work, as she attempts to write across cultures and embrace plural identities. A portion of her poetry collection Hard Bread (2002) uses the voice of Italian author Natalia Ginzburg, a witness to World War II, who was raised atheist despite being born to a Jewish father. Boyers inhabited the life and circumstances of Natalia Ginzburg in order to explore her own experiences, weaving in historical contexts and imagined insights. Boyers is the executive editor of Salmagundi Magazine and an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of the Arts. A lecturer at Skidmore College, Boyers teaches poetry and translation.