Gerald Burns (1940 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

– 1997) was 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 ...

, and artist.

Life

He was educated at

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 ...

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, and taught at

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. In 1975 Burns moved to

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

. In 1994, he moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. Burns illustrated several of his own books, and designed the covers for ''Boccherini's Minuet'' and ''Prose.'' In addition to his writing and art, Burns also dabbled in amateur

conjuring Conjuration or Conjuring may refer to: __NOTOC__ Concepts * Conjuration (summoning), the evocation of spirits or other supernatural entities ** Conjuration, a school of magic in ''Dungeons & Dragons'' * Conjuration (illusion), the performance of s ...

Awards

* 1985 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship for poetry * 1992

National Poetry Series The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program. Every year since 1979, the National Poetry Series has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry. Manuscripts are solicited through an annual open competition, judged and cho ...

Competition, for ''Shorter Poems''

Works

* Laughter in the Gallery (1966) * Sonnets from the Middle English * Boccherini's Minuet (1972) * The Myth of Accidence (c. 1973) * A Book of Spells (1975) * Letters to Obscure Men (1979) * Toward a Phenomenology of Written Art (1979) * Prose (1982) * A Thing About Language (1989) * * * ''Probability'', Standing Stone Press * ''Fuzzy Dice'', Standing Stone Press

Essays

* *

References

External links

Gerald Burns Manuscripts and Other Documents
MSS 221
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
"Index of Gerald Burns Stories, Art & Poetry", ''Dallas Arts Revue''"The Gerald Burns Student Readings," series created by WordSpace Dallas"Gerald Burns Society"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Gerald 1940 births 1997 deaths Harvard University alumni Southern Methodist University faculty New York University faculty Poets from Oregon Writers from Portland, Oregon 20th-century American poets