Author, Editor, Translator
about
Luke Hankins was born in Mississippi in 1984 and grew up in Louisiana before moving to his current home in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a graduate of the Indiana University MFA Program in Creative Writing, where he held the Yusef Komunyakaa Fellowship in Poetry. The author of two full-length poetry collections, Radiant Obstacles and Weak Devotions, as well as a poetry chapbook, Testament (Texas Review Press, 2023), Hankins has edited or co-edited a number of anthologies, including Poems of Devotion: An Anthology of Recent Poets, Between Paradise & Earth: Eve Poems (with Nomi Stone), the Best Spiritual Literature series (Orison Books), and Breaking into Blossom: Poems with Extraordinary Endings (also with Nomi Stone, forthcoming). He is also the author of a book of essays, The Work of Creation, and a volume of translations from the French of Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, A Cry in the Snow & Other Poems—which was noted in the The New York Times Book Review.
Hankins is the founder and Editor of Orison Books, a non-profit literary press focused on the life of the spirit from a broad and inclusive range of perspectives. He also serves as Senior Editor at Asheville Poetry Review and teaches in UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program.
Awarded the 2016 Dash Literary Journal poetry prize and twice shortlisted for The Montreal International Poetry Prize, Hankins’ poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous periodicals, including 32 Poems, American Literary Review, The Cimarron Review, The Collagist, EcoTheo Review, EuropeNow, Image, Linebreak, New England Review, New Poetry in Translation, Pleiades, Poetry International, storySouth, Verse, Waxwing, West Branch, World Literature Today, and The Writer’s Chronicle, as well as on the American Public Media radio program “On Being.” His poems have been anthologized in Without a Doubt: Poems Illuminating Faith (NYQ Books, 2024), Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America (NYQ Books, 2018), The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear Publishing, UK, 2016), The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins (Clemson University Press, 2016), The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. VII: North Carolina (Texas Review Press, 2015), The Global Poetry Anthology (Signal Editions, Canada, 2015), and Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing from Rising Generations (Cascade Books, 2009). Some of his poems have been translated into Albanian, French, and Serbian.
My Books
"Hankins is in conversation with numinous disbelief."
–Alina Stefanescu, On the Seawall
"It is appropriate to call Hankins’ powerful, surprising first collection of poems, Weak Devotions, ‘confessional,’ but with an emphasis on the original religious sense of the word."
–Christopher Davis, Connotation Press
“Like seashells with light shining through, these poems by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu express the tough fragility of being; in his lucid translation, Luke Hankins mirrors perfectly their deftness and their strength.”
–Hoyt Rogers
"In praise of the devotional, the book honors a radiance of doubt that eschews both easy ironies and dogmatic polemics."
–Bruce Bond
"Editors Nomi Stone and Luke Hankins have amassed an array of lyrical inquiries into this 'first' woman and her relationship to our understanding of gender and its intersection with other identities such as race and class."
–Poets & Writers
"This is a generous and inclusive selection, containing not only modern masters but also emerging voices. Above all, it is a reminder that the best writing is, in the end, an offering to the Mystery."
–Gregory Wolfe
sample work
POEMS
“Category Error” / shortlisted for The 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize
“Wreck” / American Literary Review
“Dog Pissing on a Statue of the Buddha” / storySouth
“Even the River” / The Collagist
“A Shape with Forty Wings” / Verse Daily
“Weather” / shortlisted for The 2015 Montreal International Poetry Prize
“The Way They Loved Each Other” / “On Being”
“Hedonist’s Prayer” / The Other Journal
“Vapor of Vapors” / The Curator
“Dignity and the River” / Bluestem
TRANSLATIONS
from the French of Stella Vinitchi Radulescu
5 poems from A Cry in the Snow / EuropeNow
an excerpt from “Journal with Closed Eyes” / World Literature Today
a selection of verse & prose / New Poetry in Translation
4 translations & an interview / Connotation Press
an excerpt from “Journal with Closed Eyes” / Verse Magazine
“the earth begins” / Blue Lyra Review
“day and night” / Levure littéraire
ESSAYS
“Nepotistic American Poetry” / Medium.com
“My Griefs to Sing: A Review of Christian Wiman’s Selected Poems” / West Branch
“Metaphysical Courage: A Review of Bruce Beasley’s Theophobia” / 32 Poems blog
“Which I is I?: A Review of books by Scott Cairns, Tarfia Faizullah, & Franz Wright” / Image
“Song Out of Ruin: A Review of Betsy Sholl’s Otherwise Unseeable” / Southern Humanities Review
“Poet & Priest: A Review of Spencer Reece’s The Road to Emmaus” / Books & Culture
“The Soul’s Country: A Reveiw of Patrice de la Tour du Pin’s Psalms of All My Days” / 32 Poems blog
“The Poem as Devotional Practice” / Contemporary Poetry Review
manuscript consultations
I offer editorial input on poetry and nonfiction manuscripts of any style or length (in English or in English translation). Your manuscript will benefit from my perspective as a longtime editor at nationally recognized literary magazines (Asheville Poetry Review, 18 years; Indiana Review, 3 years), as the founder and editor of a non-profit literary press (Orison Books), and as a published poet, literary critic, and translator. Books that I’ve edited and published have won awards and been featured in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Foreword Reviews, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, The Millions, and many other places.
My critique service includes line-by-line suggestions, commentary on the organization and the narrative and thematic arc of the manuscript, a list of suggested reading, and a phone or video call to discuss the manuscript. My rates are listed below.
CLIENT COMMENTS
“I’m working with Luke right now, and his editorial eye for poetry—in the case of logic, sound, form, and atmosphere, as well as the deep insight that he pulls from various disciplines within and outside of poetry (and art in general)—is sublime. His general manner when commenting on the poem via the page and on video calls is insightful, honest, quick-witted, and meaningful. The manuscript I’m working on has leapt forward leaps and bounds from working with him.”
“Luke is the best editor I’ve ever worked with, bar none. He made suggestions but always let me have the final say on edits and was a great guide throughout the book making process. He’s tireless, a great listener, and really made a difference in my writing life!”
“I’ve hired Luke Hankins several times and 10/10 would recommend.”
“Luke was exceptional at providing feedback that directly addressed areas needing improvement while doing so in ways that felt truly constructive, supportive, and encouraging. His love for the art form and his devotion to helping poets at all levels of their writing journey better their work was evident both in his editing skills and approach. You won’t regret taking advantage of his services.”
“Luke is a thorough, insightful reader, generous and specific about what works in a poem, and quick to see what doesn’t. When he offers suggestions, they are useful without being insistent. I think I’m lucky to have found him.”
RATES
Poetry
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1–39 pages: $10.00/page
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40+ pages: $10.00/page for the first 39 pages, $8.50 for each subsequent page
Nonfiction
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$0.03 per word
Please contact me with any questions, or if you’d like to sign up for a manuscript consultation.