Monica Youn

Monica Youngna Youn is an American poet and lawyer.

Life
Youn was raised in Houston, Texas. She graduated from St. Agnes Academy (Texas), Princeton University, Yale Law School with a J.D., and Oxford University with a M. Phil, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Literary career
Youn is the author of four poetry collections: Barter (2003), Ignatz (2010), Blackacre (2016), and From From (2023). Ignatz was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry; Blackacre was longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and was one of The New York Times Book Review's Best Poetry Collections of 2016; and From From was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry, one of The New York Times Book Review's Best Poetry Collections of 2023, and was recognized as amongst the best books of the year by Time, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and more.

Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, among other journals. She has given readings at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), on NPR's All Things Considered and was a keynote reader at the 2012 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference.

She currently teaches creative writing at the University of California, Irvine.

Legal career
She was the inaugural Brennan Center Constitutional Fellow at New York University Law School. She formerly directed the campaign finance reform project at the Brennan Center for Justice. She is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and was co-lead counsel for Defendant-Intervenors in McComish v. Bennett in 2011. She has appeared on PBS Newshour, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers Journal, and Need to Know. She is the editor of Money, Politics and the Constitution: Beyond Citizens United. She has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the House Committee on Administration.

She was a pledged delegate for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. She has written for Slate, The Los Angeles Times, and The Huffington Post.

Awards

 * Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University
 * Yaddo residency
 * MacDowell fellow
 * 2008 Witter Bynner Fellowship
 * Rockefeller Foundation / Bellagio—Villa Serbelloni,
 * National Book Award Finalist 2010
 * National Book Award Longlist 2016
 * William Carlos Williams Award 2017
 * National Book Critics Circle Award finalist 2017
 * PEN Open Book Award Finalist 2017
 * Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York City, 2018
 * Levinson Prize, Poetry Foundation 2019

Literary criticism

 * "Of Poetry and Power: Reflections on the Inauguration", Poetry Foundation