About

Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) is a Santa Fe, NM, writer, editor and teacher. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, Writer’s Digest and many other journals and anthologies. His collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets (Cornerstone Press) won the 2026 North American Poetry Book Award. Lee has also been awarded the Fischer Prize and Poets for Peace Award, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and four Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award, and his collection The Beautiful Foolishness was published by Casa Urraca Press in March 2026. Lee is the host of the online Tuesday Poetry Practice community.

Featured Work

Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets

2025
Wayne Lee author photo

Winner of the 2026 North American Poetry Book Award, Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is a hybrid memoir in verse, a story of love, loss and recovery composed entirely of septets (seven-line poems) written during a 12-month period from 2018-2019. During that fateful year, my disabled wife Alice took her life. As her long-time husband and caregiver, I had to cope with her suicide and learn to reinvent myself. Dining on Salt is also an in-depth exploration of the septet form, with 20 of the 80 poems written in traditional forms, and two well-researched appendixes that encapsulate the history and variety of seven-line forms.

Other Works

  • The Beautiful Foolishness

    2026

  • Buddha's Cat

    2024

  • Googling a Present Participle: Poems, Prose Poems, Bogus Monologues & Fraudulent Artifacts

    2013

  • The Underside of Light

    2012

Awards and Recognition

  • The North American Poetry Book Award
  • The Fischer Prize
  • SICA Poems for Peace Award
  • New Mexico/Arizona Poetry Book Awards finalist
  • Knightsville Poetry Contest semi-finalist
  • Santa Fe Reporter War and Peace Poetry Contest
  • Wergyl Flomp Humor Poetry Contest finalist
  • Washington Poet’s Association Bart Baxter Award finalist
  • New Millennium Writing Contest semi-finalist

Press and Media Mentions