Contact
Departments
Courses Taught
College Writing
21st Century Poetry
Temporary Utopias
Education
MFA, University of San Francisco
BA, University of Missouri
Awards and Distinctions
2024-2025 Poetic Justice Institute Prize
Q&A
What is your hometown?
Kansas City, Missouri
What are you passionate about outside of music?
History and archives, bird sounds, and baked goods.
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
Martha Graham, as told to Agnes de Mille when the younger choreographer sought advice on overcoming creative doubt: "It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."
What was a turning point in your career?
When I didn't get into grad school, the first time, and so decided to work at producing and disseminating my own work. I made art in community and learned so much about my process and myself. When I decided to try for grad school again, years later, I was much better positioned to take full advantage of the opportunity, and to enjoy it.
If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?
In another life, I'm a happy florist.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
Stephen Sondheim, Sufjan Stevens, and Dev Hynes.
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you, and why?
New York City, 1984: Nina Simone played at the Blue Note, Philip Glass was playing jazz shows at Carnegie Hall and preparing the premiere of Akhnaten; Arthur Russell was performing the pieces that would become his album World of Echo in Soho lofts; you could go dance at Paradise Garage or see music at Danceteria. So many of the artists and poets I love were passing through those rooms, dancing to that music, charming out the future.
What is your unrealized project?
I want to make an audio companion to my collection, with poems set to (or reinterpreted as) original music!
What do you think makes a concert experience unique?
It's increasingly rare you're in a room with other bodies, looking forward at the same living thing. Sitting in the shared silence. Moved by the same sounds. It's totally ancient and completely exciting.
Media
Poem: Instructions for Building Your First Time Machine (Poetry Foundation)
Biography
T.S. Leonard is a poet, performer, and author of works published in Poetry, Foglifter, and Fourteen Poems. Leonard’s debut poetry collection, Another Anthem of Fabulous Survival (Fordham University Press, 2026), was selected for the 2024-2025 Poetic Justice Institute Prize. Leonard's work includes collaborative projects at the Portland Art Museum and Pacific Design Center and community workshops through the Poetry Foundation and Palm Springs Public Library.