Barot was born in the Philippines and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2020 and was longlisted for the National Book Award.  His earlier collections include The Darker Fall, Want, and Chord, which received the UNT Rilke Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. Chord was also a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Barot's work has appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry, The New Republic, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and The New Yorker. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Stanford University. In 2020, he received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Barot lives in Tacoma, Washington and directs The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University. 

His presentation is free and open to the public.

Since 1962, the University of Rochester English Department has been celebrating the life and poetic achievements of Hyam Plutzik (1911-1962), critically-acclaimed poet and UR faculty member, by bringing the Rochester community readings by the finest contemporary literary artists. The Plutzik Series is one of the most prestigious and longest-running reading series in the country.  For our 60th anniversary season, we are thrilled to welcome acclaimed author Rick Barot to the university.