IN THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD judges’ citation
for his Selected Poems, Galway Kinnell was called
“America’s preeminent visionary,” with work in 12 collections
that “greets each new age with rapture and abundance. . . [and]
sets him at the table with his mentors: Rilke, Whitman, and
Frost.” His books, which span five decades, include The Book of Nightmares, Body Rags, and A New Selected Poems, which was a National Book Award finalist, as
well as translations of Villon and Rilke.
He is also the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize (for his
Selected Poems) and a MacArthur Fellowship.
Kinnell teaches at New York University, where he is Erich
Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing.
SHARON OLD’S POETRY, says Michael Ondaatje,
is “pure fire in the hands,” and David Leavitt in the Voice
Literary Supplement describes her work as “remarkable for
its candor, its eroticism, and its power to move.”
Her honors include the National Book Crics’ Circle Award
and the Lamont Poetry Selection for her book, The
Dead and the Living. Her
seventh and most recent collection, The
Unswept Room, has been called “her finest collection,” with
“poems that project a fresh spirit, a startling energy of language
and counterpoint, and a moving, elegiac tone shot through with
humor” (Amazon). She also teaches creative writing at New York
University.
