Diane Ward

Diane Ward (born November 9, 1956) is a U.S. poet initially associated with the first wave of Language poetry in the 1970s and has actively published into the 21st century, maintaining a presence in various artistic communities for many decades.

Born in Washington, DC where she attended the Corcoran School of Art, Ward currently lives in Santa Monica, California where she taught poetry in public schools to 1st through 5th graders for many years.

Ward has published more than a dozen works of poetry and has been included in numerous anthologies, among them: Moving Borders and Out of Everywhere along with selections published in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry and From the Other Side of the Century.

She has read widely in the United States, including the District of Columbia Arts Center, Small Press Traffic at New College (San Francisco), The Bowery Poetry Club and The Poetry Project of St. Mark’s Church.

Ward's work has appeared in dozens of small press publications, including: Crayon, Conjunctions, The Paris Review, Sulfur, and Raddle Moon.

Ward has received considerable recognition for her work including the California Arts Council Artists Fellowship in Literature, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and the San Francisco State University Poetry Center’s Book of the Year Award.

Several of her poems (including “Fade on Family”) have been set to music by the Los Angeles composer Michael Webster and she has collaborated with the avant-garde sound performer and musician, Emily Hay.