Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (born 1971) is an American poet. In 2009, she was a National Book Award finalist for her book, "]Open Interval[". Career. Van Clief-Stefanon earned her BA in English from Washington and Lee University in 1996, and her MFA in Poetry from Penn State University in 1999. She published her first full-length collection, "Black Swan" (University of Pittsburgh Press), in 2001, for which she won the Cave Canem Prize and was a finalist for the 2003 Patterson Poetry Prize. In July 2004, she became an assistant professor at Cornell University in  English Literature. In June 2008, Van Clief-Stefanon co-authored the chapbook "Poems in Conversation and a Conversation" with Elizabeth Alexander. In April 2009, Van Clief-Stefanon published her second poetry collection, "]Open Interval[", which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Van Clief-Stefanon's work has appeared in "African American Review"," Callaloo"," Crab Orchard Review", "Gulf Coast", and "Shenandoah", among other places. She is currently working on a third book, "The Coal Tar Colors".