about

George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories, which was a category finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award 2026, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025).   He has published reviews of poetry in Verse, Cultural Daily, and Revista Litoral.  He received an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University and a PhD in English & American Literature from Brandeis University.  He practices law in Miami, is a translations editor for Cagibi, and teaches poetry workshops in Florida prisons. In 2020, his poem “Agua” won first prize in the Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, and in 2023, his poem “Picking Favorites” was the first prize winner for the W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize.  His poetry has been featured on the public radio podcast The Slowdown.

He is also general counsel for Exchange for Change, an organization that provides writing classes of all sorts to incarcerated persons.

George and Colombian poet Ximena Gómez began translating each other’s poetry in 2017, and in 2023, Ximena and George collaborated on a dual-language book of poems, Conversaciones sobre agua / Conversations About Water.  Ximena’s translations of George’s poetry are collected in Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas, and their co-translations of Ximena’s poems are collected in Último día / Last Day.  Their work together is an ongoing project.