Stella Hayes is the author of two poetry collections, Father Elegies (What Books Press, 2024) and One Strange Country (What Books Press, 2020). She grew up in Brovary, a suburb outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Hayes earned an M.F.A. in poetry from NYU, where she taught in the undergraduate creative writing program and served as poetry editor and assistant fiction editor of Washington Square Review. Her work has appeared in Image, Poet Lore, The Poetry Project, Four Way Review, Stanford University Press, and Spillway, among others. Hayes is a contributing editor at Tupelo Quarterly.

Other poems on the web by Stella Hayes:
Three poems
"The Pleasure is in The Work"
"Tempera"
Four poems
Three poems
"Untitled ll (If I Were A Bird)"

Stella Hayes's Website.

Stella Hayes on Twitter.

About Father Elegies:

"Haunted by an iridescent sense of memory, personal, yet also universal, these poems constitute the deepest tribute possible—to a father, yes, but also to an entire life and a way of life that had to be abandoned. Stella Hayes' wonderfully sculpted pieces, formally and adventurously diverse, remind us that we must all, sooner or later, leave the things we love —and they give us a tool for addressing that loss. It's a beautiful gift and a solace to the heart."
—Cole Swensen

"Proving that grief never leaves us but is only transformed, Stella Hayes transforms it into lyricism. This book is one long elegy— for the father, for childhood, for Ukraine. The care and detail with which she returns to scenes with her father are heartbreaking, and in uncovering and dealing with childhood trauma the poems are brave and lit with a harsh and cleansing light."
—Matthew Rohrer