Tamarah Rockwood
it rhymes with 'camera'
About
Tamarah Rockwood is a poet, scholar, publisher, and speaker based on Bainbridge Island, Washington. She holds a degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, where her dissertation — The Hospitality of Punctuation: A History of the Exclamation Mark in Poetry, with Special Attention to Modernist Practice and the Gendered Politics of Punctuation — examines the exclamation mark as a site of gendered power in literary history. Her creative doctoral project is GODIVA, a full poetry collection.
She is the Founder and CEO of Bainbridge Island Press, an independent poetry publishing house, and host of the POETICS podcast. In 2026, Bainbridge Island Press was named to Writer's Digest's 28th Annual 101 Best Websites for Writers, listed as #1 in the Poetry section in its first year on the list. She also publishes The Stanza, a weekly newsletter on craft and poetics.
Her poetry has appeared in Liberties Journal, Brattle Street Review, The Galway Review, New Verse Review, One Art, Ultramarine Literary Review, Paddler Press, and others. Her poem "Coyotes Laughing" was longlisted for the 2019 University of Canberra Vice Chancellor's International Poetry Prize. She is the author of the collection A, B. and has recently completed Actually, her third collection, currently seeking a publisher.
She is Chair of Ars Poetica WA, an interdisciplinary organization pairing poets and visual artists across Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson, and Clallam counties, now in its fourteenth year. She serves as faculty for Centrum's Poetry on the Salish Sea, and as Chairwoman of the Literary Committee at the Rainier Club in Seattle. She has been invited to present at venues including Benedictine College's Annual Symposium on Transforming Culture and previously led Poetry Corners, an annual celebration of poetry on Bainbridge Island. She has also served as President of ANHW, the Alumnae/i Network of Harvard Women through the Harvard Club of Seattle.
She lives on Bainbridge Island with her husband and five children.
Based
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Education
Harvard University, AB Creative Writing & Literature
University of Birmingham, PhD candidate
University of Birmingham, PhD candidate
Press
Bainbridge Island Press — Founder & CEO
Organization
Ars Poetica WA — Chair
Podcast
POETICS — Host & Producer
PhD Research
The Hospitality of Punctuation
University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
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