Ryan James Wilson (born December 14, 1982) is an American poet, editor, translator, literary critic, and academic from Baltimore, Maryland. He is the C.F.O. and Office Manager of th Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers editor of Literary Matters ', and an award-winning poet, essayist, and literary translator. His first collection of poetry, The Stranger World ', was published in June 2017. In 2019, his monograph, ', was published by Wiseblood Books, and in 2021 his Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-2020 ' was published by Franciscan University Press. Ryan Wilson received an Honorable Mention for his poem For a Dog in the Rob Frost Farm Poetry contest in 2015.
Personal life
In December 1982, Wilson was born in
Griffin, Georgia
Griffin is a city in and the county seat of Spalding County, Georgia, Spalding County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a po ...
. He grew up in
Macon, Georgia
Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. Situated near the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is southeast of Atlanta and near the ...
, and graduated from
Tattnall Square Academy
Tattnall Square Academy (TSA) is a private Christian school located in Macon, Georgia, United States. It was chartered by Tattnall Square Baptist Church in 1969 and has been described at the time of its founding as a segregation academy.
Tattna ...
in 2000.
He earned a B.A. (English) from the
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...
, an M.F.A. (Poetry) from
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
, and an M.F.A. (Poetry) from
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
in 2008. Currently he teaches at
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Catholic research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is one of two pontifical universities of the Catholic Church in the United States – the only one that is not primarily ...
Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
,
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
, the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...
, the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant, the
Stegner Fellowship
The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty m ...
, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, and many more of the nation's top prizes. He lives north of Baltimore with his wife.
Donald Justice Poetry Prize
The Donald Justice Poetry Prize is a prestigious national competitionJessica Benham.Texas Tech University Professor Receives Prestigious Donald Justice Poetry Prize" ''Texas Tech News''. July 14, 2008 sponsored by the Iris N. Spencer Poetry Award ...
and was published b Measure Press in June 2017. Mark Jarman said, "The Stranger World includes heartbreaking lyrics, haunting narratives, inspired translations, and finely honed satires. It is not simply consummate skill that is everywhere present in these well-wrought poems but, to echo the title of one of the best of them, authority. They are written with the authority of mastery." Robert Pinsky wrote, "Ryan Wilson’s mastery of traditional forms serves a fresh, distinctive poetry of candor and meditation: soulful rather than brittle, more observant than performative. The idiomatic, American blank verse of Wilson’s 'Authority' and L’Estraneo is as fluent as that of Robert Frost, but with an oblique tenderness that reminds me of Frost’s friend Edward Thomas."
In 2019, Wiseblood Books published Wilson's monograph, ''How to Think Like a Poet'', which was previously awarded the Jacques Maritain Prize for Non-Fiction by the journal, Dappled Things ' George David Clark editor of 32 Poems ', wrote of the monograph: “With an uncommon clarity and a uniquely graceful erudition, Ryan Wilson challenges us to think faithfully about our art and artfully about our faith. Candid, eloquent, insightful, and, above all, passionately hospitable, ''How to Think Like a Poet'' invites us into poetic relationships, exchanges in which our minds creatively host the stranger-world while simultaneously enjoying that world’s lavish generosities. Ultimately, these pages offer nothing less than the radical welcome of the authentically Christian imagination. Rachel Hadas added, “At once heartening and challenging, hortatory and inspiring, Wilson’s homiletic essay is a gentle but powerful companion on any poet’s path.”
In December 2021, Franciscan University Press published Wilson's ''Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-2020''. Of this book,
A.E. Stallings
Alicia Elsbeth Stallings (born July 2, 1968) is an American poet, translator, and essayist.
Stallings has published five books of original verse: ''Archaic Smile'' (1999), ''Hapax'' (2006), ''Olives'' (2012), ''Like'' (2018), and ''This Afterlife ...
has written: “This anthology of lyric poems and passages of epic, from antiquity to the 20th century, from Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, represents a sweeping literary education unto itself. Fred Chappell noted, “These translations are respectful but not staid, accurate but not persnickety, renewing but not distorting,” an David Ferry added, “Wilson’s choices are always responsible and responsive, as manifested in the elegant music of his versification.” Former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets Rosanna Warren wrote: “One feels a lifetime of poetic art bound between the covers of this book. Both Ryan Wilson’s lifetime—years of dedicated, disciplined, and devoted skill went into making this varying music for so many different voices—and the larger lifetime of the poetry of the West, the Classical tradition from Homer, Alcman, and Sappho to Trakl and Georg Heym. The elegance of Wilson’s verse is breathtaking: Horatian, really—alacrity, subtlety, wit, naturalness. This book is a civilization. May it enlighten and delight many.”
Awards
* Sankey Prize for Excellence in Poetry (Johns Hopkins University).
* Shmuel Traum Prize (Boston University).
* Eleanor Clark Award (Robert Penn Warren Circle), winner.
* Jacques Maritain Prize (Dappled Things), winner, 2015.
* Walter Sullivan Prize for Promise in Criticism (''The Sewanee Review''), winner, 2016.
* Donald Justice Poetry Prize, winner, 2017.
Further reading
* – Beltway Poetry Quarterly showcases the literary community in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region.