Joel B. Peckham, Jr. 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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, scholar of

American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...

and a creative writer.

Education

Peckham graduated from

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

Career

He has taught at the

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the M ...

Hope College Hope College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Michigan, United States. It was originally opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled. The first freshman coll ...

, and the

Georgia Military College Georgia Military College (GMC) is a Public college, public military junior college in Milledgeville, Georgia. It is divided into the junior college, a military junior college program, high school, middle school, and elementary school. It was ori ...

. He currently teaches at

Marshall University Marshall University is a public university, public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, chief justice of the Uni ...

. He has worked as an editorial assistant for the ''Prairie Schooner'', and is also co-founding editor of ''Milkwood Review''. His work has appeared in ''

American Literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...

'', ''

Ascent Ascent or The Ascent may refer to: Publications * ''Ascent'' (magazine), an independent, not-for-profit magazine * ''Ascent'' (journal), a literary journal based at Concordia College * ''Ascent'' (novel), by Jed Mercurio * '' Times Ascent'', a ...

'', the ''

Black Warrior Review ''Black Warrior Review (BWR)'' is a non-profit American literary magazine founded in 1974 and based at the University of Alabama. It is the oldest continuously run literary journal by graduate students in the United States. Published in print bi ...

'', ''

The Literary Review ''The Literary Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1957. Publication was suspended in 2022, and the website notes: "Given the extenuating circumstances and the impact of Covid-19 on institutions of higher education, we do not ...

'', '' The Malahat Review'', The ''

Mississippi Quarterly The ''Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures'' is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that mainly covers Southern history and literature. Originally entitled ''Social Sciences Bulletin'', it was established in 1948 by John K. Bet ...

'', the ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (''NAR'') was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale (journalist), Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which i ...

'', '' Passages North'', '' River Teeth'', the '' Sycamore Review'', ''

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 ficti ...

'', '' Texas Studies in Language and Literature'', '' Under the Sun'', and ''

Yankee Magazine ''Yankee'' is a bimonthly (once every two months) magazine about lifestyle, travel and culture in the New England region of the United States, based in Dublin, New Hampshire. The first issue appeared in September 1935. It has a paid circulation ...

''. His work, out of the tradition of

Neo-Romantic The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in philosophy, literature, music, painting, and architecture, as well as social movements, that exist after and incorporate elements from the era of Romanticism. It has been used ...

and Open-Form 20th Century Poets such as

James Dickey James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet, novelist, critic, and lecturer. He was appointed the 18th United States Poet Laureate in 1966. His other accolades included the National Book Award for Poetry a ...

and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

employs a Whitmanesque line to explore the limits of empathy and communication in American Life.

Personal life

In February, 2004, while on a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, Peckham was in an auto accident that took the lives of his wife, Susan Atefat Peckham, and his oldest son, Cyrus. This tragedy led to his exploration of nonfiction prose as a means of expressing and critically engaging with the grief and recovery experience. His prose style is alternatively lyrical, raw, self-aware, and analytical in the tradition of writers like

Viktor Frankl Viktor Emil Frankl (; 26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and The Holocaust, Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's mean ...

and

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...

. He has since remarried and lives with his wife, Rachael, and son, Darius, in Huntington, WV.

Awards

* Fulbright Scholar

Works

"Nightwalking", ''Valparaiso Poetry Review'', Spring/Summer 2001
* *

Anthologies

* *

References

External links

"Author's website"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peckham, Joel American male poets Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Hope College faculty Marshall University faculty Middlebury College alumni People from Batavia, Ohio University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty