Campbell McGrath (born 1962) is an American
poet. He is the author of nine full-length collections of poetry, including ''Seven Notebooks'' (
Ecco Press, 2008), Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Ecco Press, 2009), and In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, 2012).
Life
McGrath was born in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, and grew up in
Washington, D.C.
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, where he attended
Sidwell Friends School; among his classmates was the poet
Elizabeth Alexander. He received his B.A. from the
University of Chicago in 1984 and his
MFA from
Columbia University's creative writing program in 1988, where he was classmates with
Rick Moody and
Bruce Harris Craven. He currently lives in
Miami Beach, Florida, and teaches creative writing at
Florida International University, where his students have included
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Obama's second i ...
,
Susan Briante,
Jay Snodgrass and
Emma Trelles
Emma Trelles is a Latina poet, writer, professor, and current poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California.
Life
Trelles earned an MFA from Florida International University in the 1990s, where she was mentored by the poet Campbell McGrath and f ...
. He is married to Elizabeth Lichtenstein, whom he met while he was an undergraduate; they have two sons.
Music
In the early 1980s, while a student at the
University of Chicago, he was a member of the punk band
Men From The Manly Planet
A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chro ...
.
Awards
McGrath has been recognized by some of the most prestigious American poetry awards, including 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 "Spring Comes to Chicago", his third book of poems), 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 ...
, 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 ...
Prize, a ''
Ploughshares
''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...
''
Cohen Award
Cohen may refer to:
Places
*Cohen-kuhi Tau/4, a star 420 light-years away from Earth in the Taurus Constellation
*The Cohen Building of ''The Judd School'' in Tonbridge, England
People
* Cohen (surname), a common Jewish surname
Arts, entertainm ...
, a
Guggenheim Fellowship, 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 ...
from the
Library of Congress, and a
MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award." In 2011 he was named a Fellow of
United States Artists
United States Artists (USA) is a national arts funding organization based in Chicago. USA is dedicated to supporting living artists and cultural practitioners across the United States by granting unrestricted awards.
Mission
The organization' ...
.
In 2017 McGrath was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, along with
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and Feminism, feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bri ...
.
Works
While primarily known as a poet, McGrath has also written a play, "The Autobiography of Edvard Munch" (produced by Concrete Gothic Theater, Chicago, 1983); a libretto for Orlando Garcia's experimental video opera "Transcending Time" (premiered at the New Music Biennalle, Zagreb, Croatia, 2009); collaborated with the video artist John Stuart on the video/poetry piece "14 Views of Miami" (premiered at The Wolfsonian, Miami, 2008); and translated the Aristophanes play The Wasps for the Penn Greek Drama Series.
Bibliography
Poetry
;Collections and chapbooks
*
* Capitalism (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)
* American Noise (Ecco Press, 1993)
* Spring Comes to Chicago (Ecco Press, 1996)
* Road Atlas (Ecco Press, 1999)
* Mangrovia (chapbook, Short Line Editions, 2001)
* Florida Poems (Ecco Press, 2002)
* Pax Atomica (Ecco Press, 2004)
* Heart of Anthracite: New & Collected Prose Poems (Stride Press, UK)
* Seven Notebooks (Ecco Press, 2008)
* Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Ecco Press, 2009)
* The Custodian & Other Poems (chapbook, Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2011)
* In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, 2012)
* XX: Poems For The Twentieth Century (HarperCollins, 2016)
* Nouns & Verbs:New and Selected Poems (Ecco Press, 2019)
* ''The Radiance Archive'' (forthcoming, 2023)
;List of poems
References
External links
Historian, comedian, storyteller:a conversation with poet Campbell McGrath" Lyn Millner, ''Florida International University Magazine'', Fall 1999 issue.
Bio and notes on articles in ''Ploughshares''Excerpt from ''Pax Atomica'' at Harper Collins''Poetry Daily'' interviewInterview in ''BOMB''
{{DEFAULTSORT:McGrath, Campbell
Living people
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
MacArthur Fellows
American male poets
Florida International University people
1962 births