C.W. Emerson’s work has garnered numerous international accolades, including two awards from Poetry International: the C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize (2018) and co-winner of the 2023–24 Summer Chapbook competition. Emerson’s poetry and literary criticism have been featured in esteemed publications such as Harvard Review, Oxford University Press, Greensboro Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and more.

He is the author of Danger Face (Wayfarer Books, 2025), winner of the 2024 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize; a chapbook, Off Coldwater Canyon (The Poetry Box, 2021); and the prize-winning portfolio The Thoracic Diaries, forthcoming from Poetry International.

Emerson’s poetry was a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize (2020) and shortlisted for the International Beverly Prize for Literature (2019). His work has been anthologized in several poetry compilations containing themes relevant to the LGBTQIA+ communities.

Dr. Emerson is a retired clinical psychologist. He divides his time between Southern California and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Visit his website at theolderamericanpoet.com.

If we are only bodies—
flesh and muscle, breath and bone,

temporary, fleeting,
motes of dust on a butterfly wing—

then let our time on earth
be a calendar of feasts:

days that bow, deep and shy,
as if to hide how fine they are;

and let the extravagant lace of evening
come and cover us like a veil—

we fortunate lovers,
                        living our lives,
here, in our carnal kingdom.