Peter Gizzi (born 1959 in

Alma, Michigan Alma is the largest city in Gratiot County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 9,383 at the 2010 census. It was incorporated as the Village of Alma in 1872 and became a city in 1905. Alma hosts the annual Highland Festival on Memori ...

) 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 wri ...

, essayist, editor and teacher. He attended

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, th ...

, Brown University and the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

Life

Gizzi was born in

to an Italian American family. He spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. After graduating from high school, the poet delayed going to college and took a job in a factory winding resin tubes and in a residential treatment center working with emotionally disturbed adolescents. Working overnight at the treatment center, Gizzi read George Oppen's ''Collected Poems'', along with H.D.,

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

, Baudelaire,

Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...

"and almost anything published by Burning Deck." Living in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, in part to keep in touch with the

punk scene The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom ...

, he walked by the St. Mark's book store one day and his eye was caught by a reprinted version of ''

BLAST Blast or The Blast may refer to: *Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner *Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front Film * ''Blast'' (1997 film), ...

'', with its shocking pink and diagonal title. He picked up a copy and read the manifestos. "I was home in that synthesis — Punk and Poetry had merged and I knew at once I wanted to edit my own journal and so I did," he later wrote.
Gizzi, Peter, "Inside / Outside: Poets in the Academy", article in ''The Modern Review'' which identifies it as having been delivered when Gizzi was on an "AWP Panel, Chicago, March 2004", Winter 2006, "Volume II / Issue 2", accessed January 28, 2007 By the late 1980s, he was waiting tables, reading and editing '' O-blek, o•blék: a journal of language arts'', which he founded in 1987 with Connell McGrath. In 1991, he started editing the lectures of

Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. ...

for publication and went to SUNY Buffalo with support from

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...

, and

Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.

, "and with the financial support (meager as it was) that working within an institution offered." In 1993, after eight years and 12 issues, he left '' o•blék'', which soon folded. Gizzi has taught at Brown University and The University of California, Santa Cruz. Since 2001, he has been a professor in the

MFA Program for Poets & Writers MFA may refer to: Organizations * Marine and Fisheries Agency, a former UK government executive agency * Ministry of Foreign Affairs (including a list of ministries with the name) * Movement of the Forces of the Future (french: Mouvement des Forc ...

at The

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

. For several years, he was poetry editor at ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

''. He also is on the contributing editorial board to the literary journal '' Conjunctions''. He is the brother of deceased poet Michael Gizzi.

Poetry

In 1992 Peter Gizzi published his first full-length collection, "Periplum" which won praise from critics.Kaspar Bartczak, “The Artifice of Personhood and the Poetics of Plenitude in Peter Gizzi's ‘Archeophonics’”. ‘In The Air: Essays on the Poetry of Peter Gizzi’. This was followed by "Artificial Heart", a collection which enhanced Gizzi's reputation as a lyric poet writing as a modern troubadour in a style which is allusive and oblique. In 2003, "Some Values of Landscape and Weather" was published. The title poem of this collection is "a sustained examination of the relationship between public and private spaces, as well as a complex reflection on war". The collection "The Outernationale" (2007) investigates language, knowledge and experience but combines this with an implied political stance. "Threshold Songs" (2011) is a series of poetic elegies which also investigate the role of the lyric poet and show "the voice of the poet contemplating its relation to other voices". Gizzi's most recent collection, "Archeophonics", continues his investigation of language; the title of the book refers to the excavation of lost sounds analogous to the process of archeology.

Awards and recognition

In 1994 he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from 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 outreach ...

(selected by John Ashbery). Gizzi has also held residencies at The

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

, The Foundation of French Literature at Royaumont, Un Bureau Sur L’Atlantique, and the Centre International de Poesie Marseille. He has received fellowships from The Fund For Poetry, The Rex Foundation, The Howard Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (1998), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Gizzi has twice held the position of Poet-in-Residence in the English Faculty of the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. In 2016 ''Archeophonics'' was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Now It's Dark''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2020 * ''Sky Burial: New and Selected Poems''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2020 * ''Archeophonics''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2016 * ''In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems 1987 –2011''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2014 * ''Threshold Songs''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2011 * ''The Outernationale''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2007 * ''Periplum and other poems, 1987 – 92''. Cambridge, UK: Salt Publishers, 2004 * ''Some Values of Landscape and Weather''. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2003 * ''Artificial Heart''. Providence: Burning Deck, 1998 * ''Periplum''. Penngrove: Avec Books, 1992

Chapbooks and Limited Editions

* ''Ship of State''. Kingston: The Brother in Elysium, 2020 * ''The Afterlife of Paper''. Los Angeles: Catalpa, 2019 * ''New Poems''. Kingston: The Brother in Elysium, 2017 * ''Field Recordings''. Cambridge UK: Equipage Editions, 2016 * ''A Winding Sheet for Summer''. Amsterdam NL: Tungsten Press, 2016 * ''Marigold & Cable: A Garland for the New Year''. Cambridge UK: Materials, 2016 * ''The Winter Sun Says Fight''. Plymouth UK: Periplum Editions, 2016 * ''Vincent, Homesick for the Land of Pictures''. Rotterdam, NL: Studio 3005, 2015 * ''Marigold & Cable''. Saint-Martin, France: Shelter Press, 2014 * ''In the Air''. Los Angeles: Manor House, 2013 * ''Ode: Salute to the New York School 1950-1970''. Tucson: Letter Machine, 2012 * ''History Is Made at Night''. Cincinnati: Students of Decay, 2011 * ''Pinocchio's Gnosis''. Northampton: Song Cave, 2011 * ''In Song & Story''. Amsterdam, NL: Tungsten Press, 2010 * ''Homer's Anger''. Paris: Collectif Generation, 2009 * ''A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me''. Brooklyn, Ugly Ducking, 2006 * ''From a Cinematographer's Letter''. London: Tolling Elves. 2004 * ''Revival''. New Haven: Phylum Press, 2002 * ''Fin Amor''. Oakland: Tougher Disguises, 2002 * ''Chateâu If''. Paris: Slacik Editions, 2000 * ''Add This to the House''. Cambridge, UK: Equipage, 1999 * ''New Picnic Time''. Buffalo: Meow Editions, 1995 * ''Ledger Domain''. Providence: Timoleon, 1995 * ''Hours of the Book''. Canary Islands, Spain: Zasterle Press, 1994 * ''Music for Films''. Providence: Paradigm Press, 1992 * ''Creeley Madrigal''. Providence: The Materials Press, 1991

Editing Projects

* ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer''. Co-edited with Kevin Killian. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2008 * ''The House that Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer''. Middletown: Wesleyan University, 1998 * ''Exact Change Yearbook''. Boston: Exact Change Publishers / Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1995 * ''o•blēk / a journal of language arts''. 12 issues. Co-edited with Connell McGrath. 1987 - 93

Notes

External links

Peter Gizzi author page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gizzi, Peter 1959 births 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets Academics of the University of Cambridge American writers of Italian descent Brown University alumni Living people New York University alumni People from Alma, Michigan People from Pittsfield, Massachusetts Poets from Massachusetts University at Buffalo alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Writers from Pittsfield, Massachusetts American Book Award winners