Denver Butson's fifth book of poetry, The Scarecrow Alibis, won the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize in 2022, after Ilya Kaminsky chose one of its poems for The William Matthews Poetry Prize (Asheville Poetry Review). His sixth book, The Etcetera Variations is a collection of work read/performed with world class improvisation musicians like Mat Maneri, Brandon Lopez, and Marc Ribot, among others.
His poems have been published in such journals as FIELD, Quarterly West, ZYZZYVA, Nuovi Argomenti, and Tin House, have been featured over a dozen times on NPR, have appeared in The Library of Congress’s Poetry 180 project, and have brought him to stages throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.