Francine J. Harris

Francine J. Harris is an American poet. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Here Is the Sweet Hand (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020), play dead (2016), and allegiance (2012). harris is a 2025 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award, for Here is the Sweet Hand. Here is the Sweet Hand was also a finalist for the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Award. harris' first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her second collection, play dead, was the winner of the Lambda Literary and the Audre Lorde Awards, and was finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.

Her work has appeared in various literary publications including American Poetry Review, New York Book Review, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, Indiana Review, Callaloo, Boston Review, and elsewhere.