Christopher Kempf is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist, and scholar of American literature.

Education

Kempf received his MFA in Poetry from Cornell University, his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago, and was a 2012–2014 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. His honors include a

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a National Parks Arts Foundation residency.

Career

Kempf is the author of the scholarly book ''Craft Class: The Writing Workshop in American Culture'' (Johns Hopkins, 2022) and two poetry collections: ''Late in the Empire of Men'' (Four Way, 2017) and ''What Though the Field Be Lost'' (LSU, 2021). He has published creative nonfiction in ''Indiana Review'', ''Meridian'', and ''Narrative'', among other places. Additionally, his creative nonfiction has been long-listed in ''Best American Essays'' and ''Best American Sports Writing''. A former Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College, Kempf teaches in the MFA program at the University of Illinois.

Published books

Poetry

* '' Late in the Empire of Men'' (Four Way, 2017) * '' What Though the Field Be Lost]'' (LSU, 2021)

Scholarship

* ''Craft Class: The Writing Workshop in American Culture]'' (Johns Hopkins, 2022)

Selected honors and awards

*Illinois Arts Council 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship * ''Narrative'' Summer 2020 Story/Essay Contest, First Place (for essay ''Local Color'') * ''The Best American Poetry'' (2020) (for poem "After,") * National Parks Arts Foundation Residency (2018) * Pushcart Prize (2017) * National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2015) * Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, Stanford University (2012–2014)

Critical acclaim

''Late in the Empire of Men''

In ''The New York Times'', Stephanie Burt celebrated how, in ''Late in the Empire of Men'' "long sentences and interwoven plots contrast the poet's confined early life in blue-collar Ohio with the measure of freedom he found on the West Coast," heralding the book's critique of "American, and Midwestern, bad faith." In ''Kenyon Review'', Brian Tierney found the collection "timely insight for our annus horribilis." " agger, dark wit, erotic melancholy, syntactic dexterity, and many laudable skills are on display in Empire," Tierney writes, "which successfully contribute to its tonal and thematic universe." In ''Colorado Review'', Benjamin Voigt noted a "particular gift for vulnerability." The poem "Clearing the History," Voigt contended, "does the important cultural work of exploring how digital pornography impacts male sexuality, but beneath its referential pyrotechnics, it's essentially a poem about shame and desire."

''What Though the Field Be Lost''

In ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB''), Lisa Russ Spaar writes, of ''What Though the Field Be Lost'', that "what Kempf does ...feels original and important." In our "identity-facing moment," Spaar argues, "Kempf steps with smarts, humor, a depth and breadth of historical knowledge, and a nimble imagination into the thick of the debate about the meaning of America, avoiding rancor, rage, or oversimplification." In ''Colorado Review'', Katherine Indermaur likewise finds in the collection "precisely the kind of honesty missing from contemporary political discourse." Evan Goldstein, writing in ''The Adroit Journal'', calls the book an "incisive look...at the social tensions and unanswered historical questions in America." And in ''The Civil War Monitor'', Kent Gramm writes that "Kempf has written an excellent series of reflections," describing poems that are "cerebral, dense with literary and historical allusions, and riddled with ambiguity and irony."

References

External links

*
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Faculty Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kempf, Christopher 21st-century American poets University of Chicago alumni American male essayists Cornell University alumni University of Illinois faculty Living people American male poets 21st-century American essayists American academics of English literature 1985 births