VCU poet Edgar Kunz named a Guggenheim fellow

By Sian Wilkerson

Edgar Kunz, a poet, author and assistant professor in Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of English in the College of Humanities and Sciences, has been named a 2026 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow, awarded on both prior career achievement and his future work.

"The College of Humanities and Sciences is thrilled for Edgar Kunz on his Guggenheim Fellowship. This fellowship is a testament to Edgar's extraordinary gifts," said Catherine Ingrassia, Ph.D., dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences. "His poetry confronts the rawest dimensions of human experience - trauma, memory, the weight of the past - without flinching and without artifice. What is remarkable is that he achieves all of this with a voice that is utterly accessible, one that reaches readers far beyond the usual boundaries of contemporary poetry. We are immensely proud to have him in our community, and I look forward to seeing what work emerges from this fellowship."

Kunz is author of two poetry collections, 2023's "Fixer" and 2019's "Tap Out." His work has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Oxford American and Poetry. Prior to joining VCU last year, he spent seven years teaching at Goucher College, where he directed the creative writing center for part of his tenure.

"The Guggenheim Foundation provides vital support for artists and scholars, especially in a time when long-standing institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts are being dismantled with alarming speed," Kunz said. "To be counted among this year's fellows is a blessing beyond words."

Describing himself as a "working class poet" in a Q&A with the College of Humanities and Sciences, Kunz said that his background "shapes the way I see the world and how I understand my work." With his poems, which he called political at their core, Kunz is "primarily interested in people and how they live and how they understand and misunderstand themselves. My work insists on the potential of the image to disrupt and reframe."

Fellowships are awarded each year to scholars and artists working across an array of disciplines. Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has supported fellows engaged in humanities research or creation in the arts by providing a monetary stipend, enabling them to pursue independent work. This year, 223 fellows across 55 disciplines were appointed from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants. Nicholas Frankel, Ph.D., a professor of English, was the last VCU faculty member to earn a Guggenheim in 2024.

During his fellowship, Kunz will continue work on his latest book, which explores his early life in a medieval anachronist organization.