Richard Haney-Jardine
Filed under: Authors
Born and raised in Venezuela, Richard Haney-Jardine León (aka Jardine) grew up speaking and writing in Spanish, English, and French. At 15 he came to the US for boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he had the extraordinary opportunity of working individually (albeit briefly) with Gwendolyn Brooks, Jorge Luis Borges, and Thom Gunn. He graduated in 1985 from Harvard, where he studied with Carlos Fuentes, Helen Vendler, and, for three years, Seamus Heaney as his one-on-one tutor. He subsequently scotched a graduate degree from the Sorbonne.
Over the next three decades he held senior positions at Houghton Mifflin, Sony Classical Recordings, and Carnegie Hall, translating scores of poems from and into several languages. At 57, he enrolled in Emerson College's MFA program, graduating in 2022, winning several graduate awards, including two consecutive Academy of American Poets Awards, adding to the two he received in college. There he worked with Daniel Tobin, Richard Hoffman, and Megan Marshall.
This is his first year seeking professional publication. Nowadays, he writes in English primarily, as well as Spanish, French, and Italian. In 2020, he moved to Houston, TX to help care for his parents, now 88 and 94. On February 16, 2023 he embarked on composing and posting on Facebook a brand new sonnet every day for 365 days.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.haneyjardine
Winning Entry: thirteen ways of looking at the faggot
Contest Won: Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2022, Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid
