W. Perry Epes was born in Alexandia and graduate Episcopal High School. He received English from universities of Virginia and Chicago and an MFA in Poetry from Mason University. His poems have appeared in Phoebe, Negative Capability, GW Forum, and Innisfree. He has taught in boarding schools for many years and coordinates the Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Competition for The Works.

Books by W. Perry Epes:

About Nothing Happens:

"In Nothing Happened, W. Perry Epes's poems concern themselves with a rich range of subjects, from language itself to the body, from the expression of time to spirituality. Epes renders a past so sentient, it is almost as though the present intrudes on it, so convinced and convincing is he that 'a riper beauty...grows out of what you were.' For all its varieties, though, Nothing Happened sustains an integral wholeness of voice, a 'oneness...in the tumble of endless division."
—Claudia Emerson

"The apparent directness of Perry Epes's poems is admirable not least for the indirectness ripping steadily below their surfaces. He draws remembered scenes with a secure sense of varying emotional weights and tones, and, infrequently but powerfully, calls with calm conviction on the legacy of English devotional poetry. These are wise and durable poems."
—Henry Taylor

"I believe you'll feel less alone reading these deft poems. They are not only rooted in a particular place—Alexandria, Virginia—they call forth a singular family and community. Epes's ancestors from the early 1800s, his fellow teachers at Episcopal High School, and especially his swaggering, vulnerable students meet the reader full on and in fantastic voice. One line in this collection sums up what happens when I read Perry Epes's poems: 'My burden melts to a thick joy you could cut with a knife for sharing 'round'"
—Naomi Thiers