Alpay Ulku's first collection is Meteorology (BOA Editions), which was selected as an "Notable Debut" by the Academy of American Poets book club. His second collection was a twice a finalist at the National Poetry Series Open Competition
His poems have appeared in literary journals such as Agni, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The American Poetry Review, the Antioch Review, Boulevard, the Cincinnati Review Crazyhorse, Epoch, Event, The Fiddlehead, Field, The Gettysburg Review, Green Mountains Review, The Malahat Review, The New Ohio Review, The Northwest Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Willow Springs and Witness, among others. His work has been anthologized in American Poetry: The Next Generation, Poetry Daily, and City of the Big Shoulders: an Anthology of Chicago Poetry. His poem Three Rivers was selected by senior Slate editor Michael Agger for their "Best Valentine's Day poems" feature, and his poem The Stiller of Atoms was selected by the Penn Center for the Book Public Poetry Project to be made into a poster and distributed to schools and libraries throughout Pennsylvania.
Alpay has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Iowa Arts Council, the Edna St.Vincent Millay Colony, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.
Alpay received an MFA from the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop and a BA from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands.
Alpay lives with his wife, the writer Anne-Marie Ulku, in the city of Samsun on the Turkish Black Sea coast.
NEWS AND UPDATES
One poem,"Double-Take," Summer 2025 in The Threepenny Review.
Personal Essay, "On Reading with an Open Heart," Jan 2024 in Plume.
One poem, "Edible Seasons" forthcoming November in The Gettysburg Review (final issue!)
One poem, "Countdown to Another War," forthcoming December in Five Points
One poem, "Triangulated," May 2023 in Plume.
Personal Essay, "On Triangulated," May 2023 in Plume.
Two poems, “Mercator” and “Bouillabaisse,” Summer 2022 in Boulevard.
One poem, "We Don't Sell Papa," in the 2021 issue of Conduit.
Two poems,“Spending the Night at the Blue Mountain Service Plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I Dreampt I Drove into a Tractor Trailer Just Past Mile Marker 202,” and “Ice Walking, Columbia Ice Field, Jasper National Park, Alberta” in the Spring 2021 issue of Willow Springs.
Three poems about dreams in the Summer 2020 issue of Event.
All text and images on this site © by Alpay Ulku
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