Gabriel Gudding is an American
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 ...
, essayist, and translator.
Life
Gudding attended
The Evergreen State College
The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...
, an experimental school in
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region.
European ...
,
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
and
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
. He is Professor of English in the English Studies Department at
Illinois State University
Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of th ...
in
Normal, Illinois
Normal is a town in McLean County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town's population was 52,736. Normal is the smaller of two principal municipalities of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area, and Illinois' seventh most ...
where he was hired to teach experimental poetry writing and poetics. His work has been translated into French, Danish, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Spanish.
Gudding is the author of the books, ' (Ahsahta Press, 2015),
Rhode Island Notebook' (Dalkey Archive, 2007), and
A Defense of Poetry' (University of Pittsburgh Press), which won the 2001 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize.
He has given hundreds of poetry readings and lectures in Europe, the Caribbean, and America. He has published poems and essays in periodicals such as ''Harper’s Magazine'', ''The Nation'', and ''The Journal of the History of Ideas''. His poetry appears dozens of anthologies, including ''Best American Experimental Writing'' (Wesleyan, 2016), ''&Now: Best Innovative Writing'' (2010), ''Best American Poetry'' (Scribner, 2010) and ''Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present'' (Scribner).
His translations from Spanish appear in anthologies such as ''The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry'' (Oxford UP), ''Poems for the Millennium'' (University of California Press), and ''The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry'' (University of California Press)
Gudding has a daughter named Clio. Gudding practices
vipassana
''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...
meditation in the tradition of Sayagyi U
Ba Khin
Sayagyi U Ba Khin ( my, ဘခင်, ; 6 March 1899 – 19 January 1971) was the first Accountant General of the Union of Burma. He was the founder of the International Meditation Centre in Yangon, Myanmar and is principally known as a leading ...
(as taught by
S. N. Goenka
Satya Narayana Goenka (ISO 15919: ''Satyanārāyaṇ Goyankā''; ; 29 January 1924 – 29 September 2013) was an Indian teacher of Vipassanā meditation. Born in Burma to an Indian business family, he moved to India in 1969 and started tea ...
).
''Gabriel Gudding'', Here Comes Everybody, June 18, 2005.
/ref>
Books
A recipient of The Nation Discovery Award, Gudding received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
The Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize is a major American literary award for a first full-length book of poetry in the English language.
This prize of the University of Pittsburgh Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States was initiated by ...
from the University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
Pitt Poetry Series for his first book ''A Defense of Poetry''.
Gudding's second book of poetry, ''Rhode Island Notebook'', was published in November 2007 by Dalkey Archive Press
Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...
. ''Rhode Island Notebook'' is a 436-page poem interlarded with essays. It was written in Gudding's car on the highways between Normal, Illinois, and Providence, Rhode Island, during 26 roundtrip journeys, and has been called by the polymathic writer and artist Alan Sondheim, "the first 21st Century classic."
Ahsahta Press published Gudding's third book, ''Literature for Nonhumans'', in 2015.
Selected online publications
"Praise to the Swiss Federation"
''Harper's'', August 2008
"Ecopoetry, Speculative Ontology, and the Disavowal of the Slaughterhouse: Some Notes on Ethics and Capital"
''Matter: A Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary'', May 2013
''Myopies'', #1, translated by Guillaume Fayard, January 2009
''Journal of the History of Ideas''. July 1996.
''Wild Honey Press'',
''Maximum Post-Avant''
"The Tuning Fork of St. Louis"
''St. Louis Magazine''
''Seven Corners'', 5 April 2006
* ttp://www.actionyes.org/issue6/gudding/gudding-road.html "And What, Friends, is Called a Road"''Action Yes.''
"Congratulations on Being Here"
''Eoagh''. Issue 5.
''Octopus Magazine'', Issue 9
*
''Jacket'' #7
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080821111257/http://www.aprweb.org/issues/mar01/gudding.html "How I Caught My Cold"''The American Poetry Review'' (APR), March/April 2001, Vol. 30, No. 2
"Praise to the Swiss Federation," and "To the Sun at Anchor"
''GutCult''
Online interviews
*"The Dangerfield Conundrum: A Roundtable on Humor in Poetry" - George Bowering, Maxine Chernoff, Katie Degentesh, Gabriel Gudding, Rachel Loden, Ange Mlinko, K. Silem Mohammad, D. A. Powell, Ron Silliman, Gary Sulliva
''Jacket'' 33 (July 2007).
*"Prison Education
(radio interview with Danny Hajek on teaching in prisons).
*Interview on Creative Writing Pedagogy
*''Here Comes Everybody''
, Andy Zeigert, "Face to Face: Gabriel Gudding", ''The Ball State Daily News Online'', 7 February 2005.
Audio files
*Gabriel Gudding
*Series A Reading with Tony Barnstone and Tony Trigilio
March 25, 2008.
Selected online reviews
*Peter O'Leary. "On Gabriel Gudding's Rhode Island Notebook
*Jasper Bernes. "Revulsion as Revolt." Review of Lara Glenum and Gabriel Gudding's first books
*Levi Stahl. "The Five Minute Muse: George Oppen, Gabriel Gudding, and Campbell McGrath - The Off-The-Cuff Art of the Poet's Notebook.
*Dorothy Barresi. "Playing in the Dark: Black Humor in Poetry.
*Stephen Burt. "New Poets on the Block: Gabriel Gudding.
*Giles Goodland, "Short Reviews of Recent Titles: Gabriel Gudding, ''Rhode Island Notebook''"
*Ray McDaniel. "''A Defense of Poetry.'' Gabriel Gudding. U Pitt Press, 2002.
''The Constant Critic.''
*Fred Muratori. "Gabriel Gudding. ''Rhode Island Notebook''"
''Library Journal.''
*Rob Telfer, "Gabriel Gudding. ''Rhode Island Notebook''. Dalkey Archive, 2007"
*Josh Corey. "Gudding, Bolaño, and the Limits of Literature.
*Erin McNellis, "A Sea Sewn to a Spine: Gabriel Gudding's ''Rhode Island Notebook''"
''uncomplicatedly''.
*Ray Bianchi, "Why The ''Rhode Island Notebook'' by Gabriel Gudding Matters
External links
Dalkey Archive Press
University of Pittsburgh Pitt Poetry Series
h o l z w e g e (Gabriel Gudding's blog)
''Rhode Island Notebook'' Blog (a collection of reviews, interview, blurbs and excerpts).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gudding, Gabriel
Cornell University alumni
American academics of English literature
Purdue University alumni
1966 births
Living people
American people of Norwegian descent
Illinois State University faculty
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize winners