Carl Phillips (born 1959) is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English at

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Early life

Phillips was born in Everett, Washington. He was born a child of a military family, moving year-by-year until finally settling in his high-school years on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. A graduate of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

, and

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, Phillips taught high-school Latin for eight years.

Works

His first collection of poems, ''In the Blood'', won the 1992

Samuel French Morse Samuel French Morse (1916–1985) was an American poet and teacher. He had the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize named in his honor, which lasted from 1983–2009. The prize was for a first or second book of poems by a U.S. poet, with a $1000 cash ...

Poetry Prize, and his second book, ''Cortège'', was nominated for a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award. His ''Pastoral'' won the 2001

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

for Best Poetry. Phillips' work has been published in the ''

Yale Review ''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...

'', ''

Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and the ''

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...

''. He was named a

Witter Bynner Fellowship Witter Bynner Fellowships are administered by the Library of Congress and sponsored by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, an organization that provides grant support for poetry programs through nonprofit organizations. Fellows are chosen by t ...

in 1998 and in 2006, he was named the recipient of the Fellowship of the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

, given in memory of

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

. In 2002, Phillips received the

Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. They are given to poets for their collections of poetry written in the English language, by a citizen or legal resident alien of the ...

, for ''The Tether.'' In 2004, he published ''All It Takes''. He won the

Thom Gunn Award The Thom Gunn Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle to honour works of gay male poetry. First presented in 2001 as the Triangle Award for Gay Poetry, the award was renamed in memory of American poet Thom Gunn, the awa ...

in 2005 for ''The Rest of Love''. His poems, which include themes of spirituality, sexuality, mortality, and faith, are featured in ''American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets'' (2006) and many other anthologies. In 2015, Phillips released his 13th collection of poems, ''Reconnaissance'', which was nominated for an

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...

for Best Poetry and appeared on the Top Books list from Canada's ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

''. Phillips was also a featured poet in the "Picture and a Poem" series for T: The New York Times Style Magazine in December 2015. ''Reconnaissance'' won the

and the

PEN Center USA PEN Center USA was a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It was one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being the PEN America in New York City. On March 1, 2018, PEN Center USA unifi ...

Award.

Recognition

Phillips was a judge for the 2010

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

. In April 2010, he was named as the new judge of the

Yale Series of Younger Poets The Yale Series of Younger Poets is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the debut collection of a promising American poet. Established in 1918, the Younger Poets Prize is the longest-running annual literary award in the Uni ...

, replacing

Louise Gluck Louise or Luise may refer to: * Louise (given name) Arts Songs * "Louise" (Bonnie Tyler song), 2005 * "Louise" (The Human League song), 1984 * "Louise" (Jett Rebel song), 2013 * "Louise" (Maurice Chevalier song), 1929 *"Louise", by Clan of ...

. In 2011, he was appointed to the judging panel for The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. His collection of poetry, ''Double Shadow'', was a finalist for the 2011

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

for poetry. ''Double Shadow'' won the 2011

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ( ...

(Poetry category). Phillips was a Chancellor of the

from 2008 to 2012. and he was nominated for the 2014

for ''Silverchest''. The Board of Trustees of The Kenyon Review honored Carl Phillips as th
2013 recipient of the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement
Phillips was also the 2021 recipient of the Poets & Writer
Jackson Poetry Prize

Selected bibliography

*
In the Blood
'. UPNE, 1992; selected and introduced by

Rachel Hadas Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is ''Piece by Piece: Selected Prose'' (Paul Dry Books, 2021), and her most recent poetry collection is ''Love and Dread'' ...

. * ''Cortège'', Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1995, * ''From the Devotions'', Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1998, * ''Pastoral'', Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 2000, * ''The Tether'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, * ''Rock Harbor'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, * ''The Rest of Love'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, * ''Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Art and Life of Poetry'', Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 2004, * * * ''Speak Low'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, * ''Double Shadow'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, * ''Silverchest'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, * ''The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination.'' Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014, (print), (eBook) * ''Reconnaissance: Poems'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015, * ''Wild Is the Wind'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018, * ''Pale Colors in a Tall Field'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020,

Critical studies, reviews and biography

References

External links

Poetry Is His Perfect ExpressionA Broadside by Carl Phillips (Green Linden Press 2019): "Like the Sweet Wet Earth Itself"
* ttp://www.poetry.la/page268.html Poetry.LA's video of Carl Phillips' reading at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, Pasadena, CA, 03/08/10br>2009 National Book Award Finalist in Poetry
on

Words on a Wire A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Carl 1959 births American male poets Poets from Missouri Poets from Massachusetts University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Harvard Advocate alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty American gay writers American LGBT poets Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry winners African-American poets 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers