Daniel Mark Epstein is an American poet, dramatist and biographer.

Epstein earned his B.A. from Kenyon College

Kenyon College

Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...

. He has been awarded an NEA Poetry Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, the Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 (1977), the Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...

 Prize, the Emily Clark Balch Prize from The Virginia Quarterly, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006. His biographical subjects include Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 and Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

, Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...

 and Aimee Semple McPherson

Aimee Semple McPherson

Aimee Semple McPherson , also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles, California evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church...

. He has published eight volumes of poetry, including No Vacancies in Hell (1973), Young Men's Gold (1978), The Book of Fortune (1982), Spirits (1987), The Traveler's Calendar (2002), and "The Glass House" (2009) as well as a book of stories, Star of Wonder (1986) and the memoir Love's Compass (1990).

His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

, The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

, The Nation

The Nation

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

, The Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, The Hudson Review

The Hudson Review

The Hudson Review is a quarterly journal of literature and the arts. It was founded in 1947 in New York by William Ayers Arrowsmith, Joseph Deericks Bennett, and George Frederick Morgan. The first issue was introduced in the spring of 1948...

, and many other magazines. His plays, which have been produced off-Broadway and in regional theaters, include Jenny and the Phoenix, The Midnight Visitor, and The Leading Lady.

In a review in Booklists of Epstein's book of poetry The Traveler's Calendar, (February 29, 2002) the critic wrote, "Biographies of Aimee Semple McPherson, Nat 'King' Cole, and Edna St. Vincent Millay have won Epstein greater renown, but his best writing is his mythically and historically haunted poetry....Epstein's new work...expresses the sorrows of the middle of life's journey with near-Dantesque poignancy."

In 2005, Epstein wrote the libretto for Jefferson & Poe: A Lyric Opera in Two Acts--music by Damon Ferrante

Damon Ferrante

Damon Ferrante is an American composer whose works have been performed in concert halls and performance venues throughout North America, most notably, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Guild Hall, and Theatre Project....

.

External links

Author Daniel Mark Epstein Discussed His Recent Book-CyberLC. www.loc.gov/locvideo/epstein

• Epstein, Daniel Mark "The Glass House:Poems". Baton Rouge LA. :Louisiana State University Press
  Louisiana State University Press
  The Louisiana State University Press is a nonprofit book publisher and an academic unit of Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, the press publishes scholarly, general interest, and regional books as part of the university’s mission to disseminate knowledge and culture...
  
  , 2009 ISBN 978-0-8071-3410-8