Selected Publications

Poetry Books

Self-Portrait with Expletives, full-length collection, Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series winner, Pleiades Press, distributed by LSU Press, published 2010.

In the Evening of No Warning, full-length collection, New Issues Poetry and Prose, Western Michigan University, March 2002.

One of Us, chapbook, Mille Grazie Press, Santa Barbara, California, 2000.

Widow Under a New Moon, chapbook, Owl Creek Press, Seattle, Washington, 1990.

Granting the Wolf, chapbook, State Street Press, Brockport, New York, 1984.

Poetry (Anthologized)

“Crossing Over,” The State Street Reader, State Street Press, Brockport, New York, 1990.

“Death Comes for the Old Cowboy,” 1981 Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, Monitor Publishing Company.

“Eight Hours in the Nixon Era,” Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years, University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.

“The Ex-Priest,” New Voices, 1979–1983, Academy of American Poets, New York, New York, 1984.

“Elizabeth at Seabrook,” Love Rise Up: An Anthology of Social Justice, Protest, and Hope, Benu Press, 2012.

“Elizabeth at Seabrook,” A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, University of Akron Press, 2011.

“Le Secret and Sixties Noir,” A Human Flourishing, 2015.

“Literature,” Intro 11, Associated Writing Programs, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, 1980.

“Self-Portrait with Expletives” and “Our Children Playing Catch in the Evening of No Warning,” Being: What Makes a Man, The University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

“The Sky,” A Gathering of Poets, Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1992.

“Widow Under a New Moon,” Keener Sounds: Selected Poems from The Georgia Review (40th anniversary retrospective), Athens, Georgia, 1986.

Poetry (in Journals)

Many journals, including: Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Antioch Review, Gulf Coast, Kestrel, The Denver Quarterly, The New York Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Quarterly West, The Notre Dame Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Greensboro Review, South Carolina Review, The Journal, Sycamore Review, Epoch, The Beloit Poetry Journal, diode, Confrontation, The American Literary Review, and Miramar.

Textbook

The Mind’s Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry, Pearson Longman, 2007.

Articles

“Heroism, Self-Love, and the Elegy,” The Drunken Boat, thedrunkenboat.com, 2007.

“Kernel,” Seed Crystals (Santa Barbara Review Publications), Santa Barbara, California, spring 1999.

“Learning to Read the Mother Tongue: On Sandra Gilbert’s Blood Pressure,” The Iowa Review, vol. 22, no. 1, June 1992.

“Privileging the Symbol: John Ashbery’s ‘A Wave,’” Papers on Language and Literature, vol. 26, no. 2, spring 1990.

“Privileging the Symbol: John Ashbery’s ‘A Wave,’” Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. 125, 2000 (reprinted).

“Sandra McPherson,” a 5,000-word chapter on contemporary poet Sandra McPherson, Introduction to Poetry, Salem Press, May 1992.

“Stature,” The Point Where All Things Meet: Essays on Charles Wright, Oberlin College Press, Oberlin, Ohio, 1994 (reprinted).

“Study As Practice: On the Role of Creative Writing in the English Curriculum,” The Writer’s Chronicle (a publication of the Associated Writing Programs), vol. 32, no. 1, September 1999.

“Synchronous Isolations: ‘Elegies for the Ocher Deer on the Walls at Lascaux’ by Norman Dubie,” American Poetry, vol. 5, no. 2, winter 1988.

“‘The Wife’s Went Bazook’: Comedic Feminism in the Poetry of Ruth Stone,” The House is Made of Brick: The Poetry of Ruth Stone, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1994.

Reviews & Essays

“Against Threnody,” on the poetry of T.R. Hummer and Bob Hicok, Poetry International, 2000, issue 4.

“Camille Paglia, Rock Prof,” on Break Blow Burn, by Camille Paglia, The Georgia Review, summer 2006.

“The Chapbook as Optic Lens,” Negative Capability, a long review of chapbooks by Angie Estes and Hannah Stein, spring 1992.

“Canonicity and the New,” essay-review on new books by Lisa Lewis, David Wojahn, Susan Wood, and Yusef Komunyakaa, The Georgia Review, spring 2013.

“Canonicity and the New,” Poetry Daily, week of April 29, 2013 (reprinted).

“‘Even Sincerity’: On the Viability of the Self in Contemporary Poetry,” essay-review of three critical books about contemporary poetry, The Georgia Review, fall 2008.

“Everyman’s Monologist,” on The House on Boulevard Street by David Kirby, The Southern Review, vol. 44:1, winter 2008.

“The Music of Consolation,” on Close to the Shore, by Jacqueline Marcus, The Journal, vol. 28.2, autumn/winter 2004.

“The New Naturalism and the New Nature Poet: Ralph Black’s Lyric of Doubt,” ForPoetry.com, “Reviews,” winter 2004.

On Elegy for the Southern Drawl by Rodney Jones, The Tribune (SLO), November 2000.

On New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell, The Tribune (SLO), August 2000.

“Poetic Modernism and the Oceanic Divide,” on New British Poetry, The Georgia Review, summer 2005.

“Selected Poems of Kenneth Koch,” The San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 1985.

“Self-Reversal and the Poetics of Judgment,” on the poetry of C.G. Hanzlicek, The Southern Review, vol. 39, no. 3, summer 2003.

“Stature: Zone Journals by Charles Wright,” Cafe Solo, spring/summer 1989 (nominated for GE Literary Essayist Award).

“Time, Story and Lyric in Contemporary Poetry,” essay-review of one critical book and four books of poetry, The Georgia Review, fall 2008.

“Velocity and the Visceral in the Poems of William Olsen,” SOLO 3, summer 1999.

“The Vigil of Astonishment,” on the poetry of Norman Dubie, The Georgia Review, spring 2004.

Selected Papers Presented

“Apprenticing the Blues: Writing and Teaching the Elegy,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Chicago, IL, 2004.

“The Circus Animals’ Persistence: Older Poets Confront Their Own Work and The Next Generation,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Chicago, IL, 2009.

“The First Lesson: On the Centrality of Creative Writing in the English Curriculum,” Associated Writing Programs Conference (delivered as article in conference publication), Tempe, AZ, 1994.

“High-Speed Verse: The Emergence of Post-Postmodern Poetry,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, Louisville, KY, 2001.

“In the Heart of the Mother Tongue: Sandra Gilbert’s Blood Pressure,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, Louisville, KY, 1991.

““No More Warning’: On the Verse Aesthetic of Judith Kitchen,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Seattle, WA, 2014.

“Notes Toward the Writing of a Creative Writing Textbook,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Chicago, IL, 2009.

“On the Evolution of the Modern American Long Poem,” University of Perugia, Italy, 1986.

“Participant as Overseer in ‘Twenty-One Love Poems’ by Adrienne Rich,” University of California at Davis, 1987, and California Polytechnic State University, 1990.

“The Personal and Political in Contemporary American Poetry,” American Institute of Florence, Italy, 1986.

“Does Poetry Make Nothing Happen? Politics and the Poet,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Vancouver, Canada, 2007.

“Postmodern Fragments Against Her Ruins: Brenda Hillman Rewrites ‘The Waste Land,’” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, Louisville, KY, 1992.

“The Rise of the Individual Voice in American Poetry,” British Institute of Florence, Italy, 1986.

“Sandra Gilbert’s Pedagogy of Self-Efficacy,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Austin, TX, 2006.

“Sexy Poems and the Foucault Inversion: The Aphrodisiac of Prohibition,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Vancouver, BC, 2005.

“Toward a Faculty-Generated, Broad-Based Process for Merit Awards,” American Association of Higher Education, copresenter, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2000.

“Welcoming the Homeless: Humor and Advocacy in the Poetry of Ruth Stone,” Modern Language Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1988.

“Who Needs Mental Yoga?: Notes Toward the Methods of the Comic Poem,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Austin, TX, 2006.

Suggested Presentations

Who Is It That I Am Not? Writing the Persona Poem
The Art of the Art of Poetry: Writing Eckphrastic Verse
Accident Alert: On Exploiting Random Happenstance
Writing Without End: On Suspending the Need for Closure
Writing Dangerous Poetry
Transgression and Convention: Writing the Erotic Poem
Apprenticing the Blues: Writing and Teaching the Elegy
Taking Measure of Elegy and Velocity in Our Poetry
On Authenticity of Poetic Voice
What We Can Learn from Larry Levis’s Elegy
What We Can Learn from Linda Hull’s Collected Poems
Transgression and Convention in Contemporary Poetry
High-Speed Verse: The Emergence of Post-Postmodern Poetry
The Verse Novel
The Serious Business of the Funny Poem
Sexy Poems and the Foucault Inversion: The Aphrodisiac of Prohibition
Lyric Interludes in Narrative Poems
Bigger Mountains, More Space: Does Moving West Change Eastern Writers?
Give Me Pizza and a Gunshot Wound: Nature Poetry As Default
Beyond Doing No Harm: On Teaching the Poetry Workshop
Creating a Syllabus for the College Intro Creative Writing Class
The First Lesson: On the Centrality of Creative Writing in the English Curriculum
Commas End Sh*t: How to Write Essays Like a Professional
On Publishing Poetry

Selected Interviews

“Tension & Release: An Interview with Poet Kevin Clark,” Flashpoint: A Journal of Literature and Music, spring 2011.

“Kevin Clark: Free in the Atmosphere,” Propeller, 3.1, winter 2011.

“On Inspiration and the Muse: An Interview with Kevin Clark,” Moebius, spring 2004.

“Interview with Kevin Clark,” The Writers Forum television interview series, SUNY Brockport, October 9, 2002.

“Interview with Kevin Clark,” Beacon Street Review, vol. 15, no. 2, 2002.

Selected Honors & Awards

Artsmith Award, 2011.

Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series winner, Pleiades Press, Self-Portrait with Expletives, 2010.

Finalist, The Drunken Boat essay competition, 2005.

Distinguished Teaching Award, Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, 2002.

Publishers Grant, for In the Evening of No Warning, from The Greenwall Fund, selected by The Academy of American Poets, 2001.

Co-winner, Charles Angoff Award from The Literary Review for outstanding contribution during a volume year, 1997.

First Place—Owl Creek Press Chapbook Contest, 1986.

First Place—State Street Press Chapbook Contest, 1984.

Fellowship—Bread Loaf Writers Conference, 1990.

Nominee—Pushcart Prize, 2014, 2013, 2008, 2006, 1997, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1988, 1984.

Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award, University of California at Davis, 1980.

First Prize—Academy of American Poets Contest, University of California at Davis, 1983, 1980.

Education

PhD, English, University of California, Davis, 1986.

MA, English (Creative Writing), University of California, Davis, 1979.

BA, English, University of Florida, 1972.

Professional Teaching Experience (Current)

Full Professor (FERP), Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo; teach modern and contemporary American literature, the modern novel, modern world literature, and creative writing; 1988–present.

Professor, Rainier Writing Workshop, Tacoma, WA (low-residency MFA); poetry writing, literature, and pedagogy; 2006–present (summers).

Courses Taught

Writing

Graduate Poetry Writing
Advanced Poetry Writing
Introduction to Poetry Writing

Literature

Contemporary American Poetry
Modern American Poetry
Great Books: 1853 to Present
Literary Modernism
American Literature: 1900–1956
Contemporary American Literature
Contemporary American Poets of Color
Modern Novel
Modern Poetry
Love, Sex, and Romance in Contemporary American Poetry
Modern British Poetry
American Confessional Poets
Modern World Poetry in Translation
Modern and Contemporary American Long Poem