David Kirby (born 1944) 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 ...

and the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the sta ...

(FSU).

Biography

Early life

Kirby was raised in "the rural south" by a polyglot "medievalist college professor" father with an obsessive passion for the works of

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

and a "farm-girl" mother turned elementary school teacher who "taught him how to shoot her single-shot .22 and paid him ten cents for every cottonmouth moccasin he knocked off" in aid of protecting the horses and sheep on their family's 10-acre property in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is border ...

. As a child, Kirby took pleasure in wandering the great outdoors; conversing with Cajun neighbors, including "some of the oddest, sweetest people eever met"; and listening to fanciful stories told by his mother "about voodoo spells and people who lived in trees." He began writing for enjoyment at the age of 5 while suffering from

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sy ...

. Also as a preteen, Kirby occasionally helped bartend for literary events hosted by his father's university department, meeting novelists and literary critics in the process.

Education and career

Kirby obtained a bachelor's degree from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

and, in 1969, a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

with a thesis on

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

. Since that time, he has taught literature courses and run poetry workshops for Florida State University's English department. In addition to teaching at the university's main campus in

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the populatio ...

, he has worked at FSU's international campuses in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico a ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area also ...

, and elsewhere, supervising numerous undergraduate honors theses, masters theses, and doctoral dissertations in the process. Kirby has published more than 20 books, including multiple poetry collections, a handful of volumes of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, and biographies of

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a r ...

and

Little Richard Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the " ...

. His poems and essays also frequently appear in journals such as ''

The Southern Review ''The Southern Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established by Robert Penn Warren in 1935 at the behest of Charles W. Pipkin and funded by Huey Long as a part of his investment in Louisiana State University. It publishes fiction ...

''. Kirby cites

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

, Little Richard, and

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...

as foundational influences on his poetry.

Marriage and children

Kirby lives with his wife and fellow writer Barbara Hamby in Tallahassee, Florida. Hamby has described the atmosphere of their household as akin to "an ongoing workshop," with each partner continuously encouraging and inspiring the other's writerly endeavors as well as periodically providing constructive criticism on works in progress. The pair have co-edited a poetry anthology.

Will Kirby William Terence Kirby (born January 2, 1973), popularly known as Dr. Will, is an American aesthetic dermatologist, an associate clinical professor of dermatology, and a reality television personality. He is known for winning the CBS reality show ...

, one of David's children from a previous marriage, is a dermatologist and '' Big Brother'' winner.

Published works

Poetry collections

*''More Than This'' ( LSU Press, 2019, ) * ''Get Up, Please'' ( LSU Press, 2016, ) * ''A Wilderness of Monkeys'' (Hanging Loose Press, 2014) * ''The Biscuit Joint'' ( LSU Press, 2013, ) * ''Talking about Movies with Jesus'' ( LSU Press, 2011, ) *''The Temple Gate Called Beautiful'' (

Alice James Books Alice James Books is an American non-profit poetry press located in Farmington, Maine and affiliated with the University of Maine at Farmington. History and mission "Alice James Books was founded as a co-operative press in Cambridge, MA in 197 ...

, 2008) *''The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems by David Kirby'' (Baton Rouge:

Louisiana State University Press The Louisiana State University Press (LSU Press) is a university press at Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, it publishes works of scholarship as well as general interest books. LSU Press is a member of the Association of American Univer ...

, 2007) * ''I Think I Am Going to Call My Wife Paraguay'' (Alexandria, Virginia: Orchises Press, 2004) * ''The Ha-Ha'' (Baton Rouge:

, 2003) *''The Travelling Library'' (Alexandria, Virginia: Orchises Press, 2001) * ''The House of Blue Light'' (Baton Rouge:

, 2000) * ''My Twentieth Century'' (Alexandria, Virginia: Orchises Press, 1999) * ''Big Leg Music'' (Alexandria, Virginia: Orchises Press, 1995) *''Saving the Young Men of Vienna'' (Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 1987) *''A Tall Woman with a Black Eye'' (Kalliope: a Journal of women’s literature and art. 1998)

Literary criticism

* ''Ultra-Talk: Johnny Cash, The Mafia, Shakespeare, Drum Music, St. Teresa of Avila, and 17 Other Colossal Topics of Conversation'' (

University of Georgia Press The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in Georgia and a m ...

, 2007) * ''What is a Book?'' (Athens, Georgia:

, 2002) * ''Mark Strand and the Poet's Place in Contemporary Culture'' (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990) * ''Writing Poetry: Where Poems Come from and How to Write Them'' (Boston: The Writer, Inc., 1989)

Biography

*''Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll '' ( Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009) *''Herman Melville'' (New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1993)

Recognition

In his capacity both as poet and as professor, Kirby has been the recipient of multiple awards and honors at the institutional, state, and national levels. The Florida Arts Council awarded him four separate grants in 1983–2002. In 1985, he was awarded a grant by 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 in 2003, he was the recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. In 2016, he won the Florida Humanities Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing. His poetry has also won the

Brittingham Prize in Poetry The Brittingham Prize in Poetry is a major United States literary award for a book of poetry chosen from an open competition. The prize, established in 1985, is sponsored by the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is ...

(1987) and the

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 ...

XXV (2001), was shortlisted for the

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

(International) in 2004, and has been collected four times in ''

The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...

'' (2000, 2001, 2006, 2007). Kirby has also been repeatedly formally recognized for his work as an educator. In 1990–2017, he repeatedly won competitive awards bestowed by

and the university's College of Arts and Sciences, including being made Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor in 2003 and receiving the FSU Distinguished Teacher Award in 2006.

Billy Collins William James Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York (retired, 2016). Collins ...

has stated that he considers Kirby "one of the most engaging and original voices on the American poetry scene today," claiming that he "could recognize a Kirby poem on the page across a room, just as ecould recognize one of Emily Dickinson’s."

References

External links

David Kirby's personal web site

Florida State University, Department of English website

Griffin Poetry Prize biography

Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirby, David American male poets Living people Florida State University faculty 1944 births Poets from Florida Johns Hopkins University alumni National Endowment for the Arts Fellows