Marvin Bell was the author of more than twenty books of prose and poetry, including Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See (Atheneum), a finalist for the National Book Award, Mars Being Red (Copper Canyon Press), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and Incarnate: The Collected Dead Man Poems (Copper Canyon Press). The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts, he taught for forty years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and served as the first Poet Laureate for the state of Iowa. He died on December 14, 2020 at the age of 83.
