Rosemarie Dombrowski (RD) is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, the founding editor of both rinky dink press and The Revolution (Relaunch), the founding director of Revisionary Arts, a nonprofit that facilitates therapeutic poetry workshops for vulnerable populations, the medical community, and the community at large.
Additionally, RD is a Teaching Professor at Arizona State University, where she teaches courses on medical poetry, war poetry, radical underground print culture (zines), women’s literature, and journal curation.
In 2023, with the support of the Office for Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at ASU, she became the founding editor of ISSUED: stories of service and the creator of Verse for Vets, a poetic medicine program for veterans.
RD’s literary arts programming spans more than 20 years and has birthed numerous community-facing projects. Her awards include an Arts Hero Award (2017), a Fellowship from the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics (2017), a Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets (2020), a Great 48 award from Phoenix Magazine (2020), an Arizona Humanities Speaker of the Year award (2022), and an Arizona Capitol Times Leader of the Year award (2023).
In addition to giving hundreds of readings across the Southwest, RD has been the featured poet at the AZ NOW Conference, the AZ Public Defenders Association Conference, the AZ Humanities Annual Awards Celebration, the 19th Amendment Celebration at City Hall, Mayor Stanton’s State of the City Address, Arts Congress, the Honor Health Night of Gold, In Celebration of Women I & II at the Herberger Gallery, an Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and several ASU convocations. She was also a featured reader for the Phosphorescence Poetry Series at The Emily Dickinson Museum in 2021. In April 2022, she gave a TEDx talk entitled “The Medicinal Value of Poetry.”
RD has published three collections of poetry: The Book of Emergencies (Five Oaks Press 2014), The Philosophy of Unclean Things (Finishing Line Press 2017), and The Cleavage Planes of Southwest Minerals [A Love Story], winner of the 2017 Split Rock Review chapbook competition. She’s also a five-time Pushcart nominee.
Her work as a medical humanist and medical poet has been featured on Poetry Daily, poets.org, on local NPR affiliates, national NPR podcasts, the TEDx stage, the Mayo Clinic (Phoenix), and elsewhere.
Additionally, RD is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, where she serves as the faculty editor for the medical poetry journal, Grey Matter. She’s also the creator/curator of the Pharmacy of Poems in the Compassion Center at Banner-University Medical Center-Phoenix.
Rosemarie Dombrowski 