PALEWELL PRESS

Ron Price is an American poet known for his work exploring Southern life, family, racism, and spirituality. He grew up in the Tennessee bottomlands of Memphis and has lived and worked in Philadelphia and New York City.

From 1994 - 2023 he was Poet in Residence at the Juilliard School teaching poetry and creative writing.  From 1994 - 2006 he was a co-founder of the Free People’s Poetry Workshop.  In 1997 & 1994 he conducted poetry workshops for Exoterica, funded, in part, by Poets and Writers, Bronx, NY.  From 1994 – 2003, he conducted poetry workshops at the Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, Mt. Kisco, NY.

During the 1980s he taught Writing Across the Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania, as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Folklore and Folk Life. He worked as a Poet in the Parks, Poets in Prisons, and Poet in the Schools in Memphis, TN and Philadelphia, PA.

He is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship.

In 2003 & 2004 he was Visiting Poet to Jerusalem at the request of the Israeli American Center through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State, where he conducted a faculty enrichment program related to American Studies in the Israeli school system. Similarly, in 2002 he was sent as Visiting Poet to India, offering poetry readings and talks on American literature as part of an international program titled “The Artist Replies to Terror.” In 1996 the United States Information Agency sent him to Antwerp University, Belgium, to discuss poems and American literature.

Ron’s poems have appeared in journals including The American Poetry Review, The Hindu (India); Leviathan Quarterly (U.K); New Letters; Northeast Corridor, Poetry Magazine, Southern Exposure and Zone 3. He was Featured Poet in The Painted Bride Quarterly and his work appeared in several anthologies including The Good Citizens of Gomorrah; Full Circle; The Word Thursdays Anthology; Downtown Poets; and several editions of the Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza anthology.

His previous publications include Surviving Brothers, a limited-edition chapbook from Slash & Burn Press,1986; reprinted by Wellspring Press,  1991; Blues for K, a pamphlet from Moving Target Press, 1993; a 60-minute cassette recording A Crucible for the Left Hand from Wubbie Productions, 1996; A Small Song Called Ash From the Fire, the collection and CD both from Rattapallax Press, 2001; and the collection A True Account of the Failure of Bodies to Burn, Finishing Line Press, 2014.

In Spring 2026, Palewell Press will publish Ron's pamphlet collection Desire and Death in Nonconnah County, poetry on his coming-of-age in the Tennessee bottomlands