Meet Noah Davis
Noah Davis & Ridge Anderson
Noah Davis’s second poetry collection, The Last Beast We Revel In, was published by CavanKerry Press in 2025. His first book, Of This River, was selected for the 2019 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize from Michigan State University’s Center for Poetry. Davis earned his MFA at Indiana University and has published work in The Sun, Best New Poets, Poet Lore, Southern Humanities Review, The Year’s Best Sports Writing, Orion, and North American Review. Davis was also a Katharine Bakeless Nason Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. You can read his forthcoming fiction in Southern Humanities Review and forthcoming poetry in The Southern Review. He is currently a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Penn State University.
Every Chautauqua issue has a theme. The theme for our upcoming edition is Intervals. Would you mind speaking just a little on how the idea of Intervals contributed to you choosing to submit your poetry?
I don’t write “theme poems.” I write a lot of poems that I have no idea where they will end up. But when Chautauqua announces their theme every year, I return to my folders and search for work that might fit. The poems that were accepted for the Intervals theme were written back in March at the early turn of spring when there was a lot of snow on the ground and the light was growing stronger by the day. They were directly addressing the space between the seasons as well as the space between understanding many different changes in life. I’m so grateful they were accepted by Chautauqua!
How do you know when a poem is finished?
That has always felt like an impossible question to answer. There is a gut feeling. There is getting feedback from others. But I guess I “know” when a poem is done when I read it out loud and like the way it sounds.
Do you have any projects that are taking priority with your time right now or that you are particularly excited about?
I am working on a poetry manuscript focused on a tertiary character from my first collection, Of This River. Witch James upends gender norms, embodies folk wisdom and landscape inheritance, and has a sense of humor. Being in the world of those poems has been a lot of fun. I’m enjoying waking up every day and diving in.
What advice would you give to someone who is writing with the goal of publication?
The writing always comes first. You must push your poems as far as they can go. You must examine them deeply and have a critical eye when revising. When you believe in your poems, send them out. Keep believing in them. Rejection should not influence your belief. Acceptance should also never be total affirmation.
Discover more here: https://noahdaviswriter.com/home-place/