Acclaimed Poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi Visits The Walker School

Nationally recognized poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi met with students and faculty at The Walker School last week to read and discuss selected poems from their newest book, The New Economy, a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Leading up to the visit, Upper School students worked through Calvocoressi’s poems in both English classes and in small groups. On Friday, Calvocoressi led an assembly with the full Upper School, as well as an informal gathering over lunch with faculty and students. They also held a workshop for AP English Literature students while on campus.

Calvocoressi, who studied at Sarah Lawrence College and earned an MFA from Columbia University, teaches at the University of North Carolina Chapel-Hill as an associate professor and Walker Percy Fellow in Poetry. They were elected in 2026 as a Chancellor to the Academy of American Poets.

Calvocoressi shared that while visiting Georgia Tech earlier in the week, two biochemistry students asked what the first poem was that they truly loved.

“For me, it was really Robert Frost’s ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ in The Outsiders,” said Calvocoressi. “I grew up in a community in Connecticut that felt a lot like the world of The Outsiders, and I remember reading that poem and really experiencing it. The way the book made that poem its emotional hinge was powerful. I think about that poem all the time. It’s very important to me.”

Calvocoressi's visit marks the third consecutive year Walker has brought nationally recognized poets to campus, having hosted Victoria Chang in 2024, and Rick Barot in 2025. Their visit to Walker was made possible by the Dan Christmas Memorial Fund. Dan, a member of the Walker School class of 1997, loved literature, poetry and the performing arts. 

“I feel so blessed to be here. Growing up, I knew I was smart, but school was very hard for me. One of the things I am struck by is that this is not the environment here,” Calvocoressi shared with students at the assembly. “This is something beautiful that you have built here.”