John Allman (born 1935 in New York City), also known as Jack Allman, is an American poet.

Life

The son of John King Allman and Helen Burghard, and the eldest of five children, John Allman spent his early childhood in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 1943 the family moved to

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

, where he eventually attended

William Cullen Bryant High School William Cullen Bryant High School, or William C. Bryant High School, and W.C. Bryant High School, or Bryant High School for short, is a secondary school in Queens, New York City, United States serving grades 9 through 12. Name It is named in hon ...

until he dropped out in 1952. He earned his academic diploma at

night school A night school is an adult learning school that holds classes in the evening or at night to accommodate people who work during the day. A community college or university may hold night school classes that admit undergraduates. Italy The Scuola ...

while working as a laboratory technician in the product control labs of

Pepsi-Cola Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was ...

. He then enrolled in

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

as a pre-med student, but later transferred to

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. After many delays, and a stint in California as a technician, he settled on studying the humanities and decided to become a writer. For his MA in

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

and creative writing from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

, he studied with Donald Dike, Cecil Lang, Philip Booth and Delmore Schwartz. He is retired and lives in Katonah, New York, with his wife Eileen Allman, also a writer. John Allman's papers are held at Syracuse University.

Work

''Algorithms'' (prose poems), John Allman's eighth book-length collection of poetry, was published in 2012 by Quale Press. His previous poetry book was ''Lowcountry'' ( New Directions, 2007). His first book, ''Walking Four Ways in the Wind'', was published in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets (Princeton University Press, 1979). Subsequent poetry books include ''Clio's Children'' (1985), ''Scenarios for a Mixed Landscape'' (1986), ''Curve Away From Stillness: Science Poems'' (1989) and ''Loew’s Triboro'' (2004) (declared a Best Book of 2004 in The Bloomsbury Review), all published by New Directions, which also published Allman’s first fiction collection, ''Descending Fire & Other Stories'' (1994). The Wallace Stevens Society Press published his ''Inhabited World: New & Selected Poems 1970–1995 in 1995''. Allman's latest book is a new collection of short stories, ''A Fine Romance'', to be published by Quale Press in 2015. His

prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associat ...

s appeared recently in the online journal ''Innisfree Poetry Journal'' and in the form of a

chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...

, ''Attractions'', in the online journal ''2River''. His prose poems about

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

appeared recently in the print journal ''Sentence''. He has recently completed his second collection of short stories, ''A Fine Romance'', and has also just completed a new collection of poems entitled ''Older Than Our Fathers'', 25 poems from which appeared in December 2008 as an electronic chapbook with the online journal ''Mudlark''. Other poems from ''Older Than Our Fathers'' have appeared in or will soon appear in '' Hotel Amerika'', ''

New York Quarterly The ''New York Quarterly'' (''NYQ'') was a popular contemporary American poetry magazine. Established by William Packard (1933-2002) in 1969, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine has called the ''NYQ'' "the most important poetry magazine in America." Hist ...

'', ''Asheville Poetry Review'', ''Innisfree Poetry Journal'' and ''5AM''. Other new poems are forthcoming in ''

Massachusetts Review ''The Massachusetts Review'' is a literary quarterly founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It receives financial support from Five Col ...

'' and ''

Kenyon Review Online ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...

''. Allman's most recent short stories have appeared in ''Ambusharts'', ''Blackbird'', '' Storyglossia'' and ''

Michigan Quarterly Review The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...

''. His poems have appeared in the following anthologies: ''After the Storm: Poems About the Gulf War'', ''Saturday's Children: Poems About Work'', ''New Directions in Prose and Poetry'', ''Pushcart Prize VIII'', ''Dog Music'', ''Baseball I Gave You the Best Years of My Life''. The recipient of 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 ...

in Poetry as well as two

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

ships in poetry from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

and the Helen Bullis Prize from ''

Poetry Northwest ''Poetry Northwest'' was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, Edith Shiffert and Nelson Bentley as co-editors. The first issue was 32 pages and included the work of Richmond Latt ...

'', Allman's poems, stories, and essays have been widely published in such journals as '' The American Poetry Review'', ''

The 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 Antioch Review'', ''The Massachusetts Review'', ''Michigan Quarterly Review'', ''

North Dakota Quarterly ''North Dakota Quarterly'' (''NDQ'') is a literary journal published quarterly by the University of North Dakota. ''NDQ'' publishes poetry, fiction, interviews, and literary non-fiction. It was first published in 1911 as a vehicle for faculty p ...

'', ''

OnEarth The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, ...

'', ''

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, Philip ...

'', ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'', '' Poetry International'', ''

The Quarterly ''The Quarterly'' was an avant-garde literary magazine founded and edited by Gordon Lish in 1987. It was published by Vintage Books / Random House in New York City. ''The Quarterly'' showcased the work of contemporary authors. The magazine contai ...

'' and ''

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 ...

'', as well as the online journals ''Blackbird'', ''Full Circle'', ''Futurecycle'', ''Slope'' and the online anthology ''Enskyment''. His chapbook, the precursor of the later book, ''Lowcountry'', appeared in the chapbook series done by the online journal ''Mudlark''. Allman holds a master's degree in Creative Writing from

and is now retired from teaching. He lives in New York, and spends his winters on

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Hilton Head Island, sometimes referred to as simply Hilton Head, is a South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry resort town and barrier island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is northeast of Savannah, Georgia, and southwest of C ...

Reviews

"Allman is among the first rank of American poets –– he holds his place for his consistently fine ventures into new forms and ways of seeing." ––''The Bloomsbury Review'' "..the lyric mode proves him to be a poet of rare expansiveness and imaginative gifts." – ''Publishers Weekly'' on ''Scenarios for a Mixed Landscape'' ''Curve Away From Stillness'' "...is a book for people who have time for reading, and re-reading, and closing the book and taking it up again, perhaps with colored pencils to trace the complexity of the metaphor webs, the Shandean simultaneities, the recitatives, the arias, the ensembles... . it is a love poem, and the complex and delicate metaphoric structure of the book, taken as a whole, is the lover's dance between the beloved and the universe." "Allman uses the formal powers of verse to bring shapeliness and elegance to the random mess of his own remembered experience.... ''Loew's Triboro'' is an eloquent meditation on the way mind, body, language, and desire get infused with the ghostliness of popular culture, stories and pictures inhaled in the dark.;" ––''Michigan Quarterly Review'' " llmanhandles his narratives the way somebody might set about untying a formidably knotted piece of rope, grabbing hold of an end and following it back and forth, under and over as it twists and turns on itself, but never losing sight of the fact that the thing is finally, all one piece." ––''The Washington Post'' on ''Descending Fire and Other Stories'' "Allman goes back and forth between specificity and grand statement effortlessly, as though the speaker is not so much part of the landscape—the weather, the birds, the grains of sand we feel beneath our toes—as he embodies it. As our masterful author puts it at the end of 'Watching Weather' as he watches snow on TV, the poems resemble a lake effect, 'careless as the kiss of a stranger.'"-- ''Bloomsbury Review'' on ''Lowcountry''Daniel Nester
Review of Allman's ''Low Country''
, ''Bloomsbury Review'', July 30, 2008. "I say this rarely about contemporary poetry books: ''Inhabited World'' is a truly major collection."—Dick Allen, ''American Book Review'' Praise for ''Algorithms'': "John Allman is master of the packed, surprise phrase, the sharp insight, intense articulated moment. From 'prickings of consciousness' which

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

identified as the core of the prose poem, stories cross thresholds, opening up wide vistas. They call us out and into a fascinating country where the unexpected clicks into place. From these deep, 'broken,' musical narratives real life rises and gleams. I admire this collection enormously."—Brian Swann

Awards

* 1976 Helen Bulls Prize from ''Poetry Northwest '' * 1983 Pushcart Poetry Prize * 1984, 1990

Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry

Bibliography

"Caught in the Net FEATURED POET -JOHN ALLMAN"
''Poetry Kit'', Guest Editor – Dan Masterson * * * * * * * * ''Algorithms: prose poems'' Quale Press 2012

External links

Q&A with John Allman at ConnotationPress.com
in ''Mudlark''
Biographical sketch and links to some poems
''Blackbird'', Vol. 4, No. 1

''Storyglossia'' No. 22 *Jon D. Markman
"He Takes Poetry in New Directions"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', August 12, 1985

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allman, John Poets from New York (state) Hunter College alumni Syracuse University alumni 1935 births Cazenovia College faculty Living people Writers from Manhattan People from Katonah, New York People from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan People from Astoria, Queens Brooklyn College alumni