Thomas Centolella
Thomas Centolella is an American poet and educator. He has published four books of poetry and has had many poems published in periodicals including American Poetry Review. He has received awards for his poetry including those from the National Poetry Series, the American Book Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and the Dorset Prize.
Thomas Centolella

DanteParadiso · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Name
- Thomas Centolella
- Occupation
- poet and educator
- Awards
- Guggenheim Fellowship, The Dorset Prize, Lannan Literary Award for Poetry
- Born
- 1952 · United States.
- Education
- Stanford University
- Honours
- American Book Awards · Guggenheim Fellowship
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Thomas Centolella is an American poet and educator. He has published four books of poetry and has had many poems published in periodicals including American Poetry Review. He has received awards for his poetry including those from the National Poetry Series, the American Book Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and the Dorset Prize.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Thomas Centolella. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- unresolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q7788301 · wikipedia · Thomas Centolella
In this article
Biography
Biography
In 2019, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. • Illustration — Thomas Centolella
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Thomas Centolella • Occupation — poet and educator • Language — English • Citizenship — American • Genre — poetry • Awards — Guggenheim Fellowship, The Dorset Prize, Lannan Literary Award for Poetry
Life
Life
Centolella has published four books of poetry: Terra Firma, Lights & Mysteries, Views from along the Middle Way, and Almost Human. His poetry has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Parthenon West Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and The Los Angeles Times, among many other periodicals. His poem "View #45", was read at the United Nations as a part of Poets Against the War. "In the evening we shall be examined on love" and "Lines of Force" were featured on Garrison Keillor's Writers' Almanac on NPR. He has been a visiting writer at many universities and colleges. Mr. Centolella served as a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has taught literature and creative writing at San Francisco State University, at the University of California, Berkeley (Extension), at the Institute on Aging (San Francisco), at San Francisco WritersCorps, and in the California Poets in the Schools Program. He currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at College of Marin and in private workshops.
Anthologies
Anthologies
• America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, Sixteen Rivers Press (2018) • The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Sixteen Rivers Press (2010) * * * * * *
Editor
Editor
* *
Poetry
Poetry
* * • "View #45", poemhunter • "The Secret Life," Poetry Northwest, • 10 poems, https: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-centolella
Books
* * * • Almost Human. Tupelo Press, 2017.
Awards
• 1990 National Poetry Series (selected by Denise Levertov) • 1991 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and Bay Area Book Reviewers Award (aka, Northern California Book Award). • 1992 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. • 1996 Poetry Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California (aka California Book Award). • 2015 The Dorset Prize, (selected by Edward Hirsch), Tupelo Press. • 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 31 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
38,991 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Thomas BurkeAuthor
- Thomas Burnett SwannAuthor
- Thomas CampbellAuthor
- Thomas CarewAuthor
- Thomas ChalmersAuthor
- Thomas Chandler HaliburtonAuthor
- Thomas ChattertonAuthor
- Thomas ChisholmAuthor
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Thomas Centolella?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.