Holly Painter is the author of four books of poetry.

At last, we listen closely: cryptic crossword poems (Black Spring, 2026) invents an original form: interconnected poems based on cryptic crosswords. The pressure of all that light (Rebel Satori, 2022) is a poetic exploration of growing up queer and genderqueer. My Pet Sounds Off: Translating the Beach Boys (Finishing Line, 2020) is a satirical English-to-English translation of Beach Boys hits. Excerpts from a Natural History (Titus, 2015) is an experimental poetic encyclopedia, counterfactual history of natural philosophy, travelogue, doomed work romance, and meditation on marginalia.

Holly is currently finishing up a collection of oral histories with workers in occupations that are becoming obsolete.

She lives with her wife and two children in Vermont, where she is the Director of the Center for Research on Vermont and a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Vermont.