Sean Sexton was born and raised on his family's Treasure Hammock Ranch and divides his time between managing a 700-acre cow-calf and seed stock operation, painting, and writing. He is author of Blood Writing: Poems (Anhinga Press); May Darkness Restore: Poems (Press 53); and two chapbooks. His third full poetry collection, Portals, is due out in autumn 2022. He has performed at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada; Miami Book Fair International; and the High Road Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction in Winston Salem, North Carolina. He was nominated for a 2020 and 2021 Pushcart Prize and received a Florida Individual Artist's Fellowship in 2001.
Sean is a board member of the Laura Riding Jackson Foundation and founding event chair of the Annual Poetry and Barbeque, now in its eleventh year. He became inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County in 2016.
"Buck Ramsey told us the earliest roots of contemporary cowpunch culture could be found in two sources: Hesiod's Works and Days and the songs and poems of Robert Burns—the Greek philosopher carrying the subject matter and the Scots bard supplying the language. Were Buck with us today, he'd see the two come together in Sean Sexton's May Darkness Restore, a risky and rewarding work that couples a poet's words with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. Risky—for that is where poetry lives—and rewarding—for that is where tradition lives. I highly recommend it."
— Andy Wilkinson, author of Surprise, Texas
