Elizabeth Willis
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Willis is an American poet, literary critic and professor of literature and creative writing at Wesleyan University
. Her most notable work includes four major books of poetry and a scholarly collection of essays on Lorine Niedecker
which she edited. Her literary criticism centers on 19th and 20th century poetry and the ways in which technology influences the production of poetry. She also investigates public and private spaces in her prose. Willis has garnered much praise for her work and has won several awards including the National Poetry Series
.
from the Poetics Program at SUNY Buffalo. Willis has taught at several institutions including Brown University
, Mills College
and the University of Denver
. Since 2002 she has taught at Wesleyan University
where she currently serves as the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing. She lives in central Massachusetts
, and is married to the poet Peter Gizzi
.
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
. Her most notable work includes four major books of poetry and a scholarly collection of essays on Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Faith Niedecker was a Wisconsin poet and the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets...
which she edited. Her literary criticism centers on 19th and 20th century poetry and the ways in which technology influences the production of poetry. She also investigates public and private spaces in her prose. Willis has garnered much praise for her work and has won several awards including the National Poetry Series
National Poetry Series
The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program.Every year since 1979 it has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry...
.
Life
Willis grew up in the Midwestern United States and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She then earned a Ph.D.Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from the Poetics Program at SUNY Buffalo. Willis has taught at several institutions including Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
and the University of Denver
University of Denver
The University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....
. Since 2002 she has taught at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
where she currently serves as the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing. She lives in central Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and is married to the poet Peter Gizzi
Peter Gizzi
Peter Gizzi is an award-winning American poet and renowned editor of the American poet Jack Spicer. He attended Brown University, New York University and the State University of New York at Buffalo.-Life and career:...
.
Reviews
Meteoric Flowers, Elizabeth Willis’s fourth collection of poems, takes for its muse Erasmus Darwin, the 18th-century polymath, scientist, poet, and grandfather to Charles. Willis has written these prose poems obliquely around Darwin’s The Botanic Garden (1791), a long poem in two parts that makes surprising connections between nature, politics, mythology, history, art, and the human condition.
Elizabeth Willis’s Meteoric Flowers offers the reader a strange and at times almost overwhelmingly pleasurable world, one that is inspired (as Willis informs us in her “Notes on the Text”) by Erasmus Darwin, “the late eighteenth-century doctor, botanist, inventor, poet, and intellectual precursor to his grandson Charles.”
In Turneresque, Elizabeth Willis explores permanence in motion, the
differences between a frozen and internalized moment captured in a painting, and the motion of film. Each ‘still’ creates the illusion of a seamlessly whole work or story, and, subsequently, a seemingly trustworthy physical universe. The ‘Turner’ in the title is a result of two intertwining explorations: the work of 19th-century painter J.M.W. Turner and a social critique involving media magnate Ted Turner.
While Willis would challenge the “Turneresque” valorization of Manifest Destiny, Turneresque implicitly acknowledges the accomplishments of past literary “frontier” exploration yet manifests continual efforts to keep the linguistic frontier open—if not with grand flourishes, then with subtle “turnings.”
Awards
- 1994 National Poetry SeriesNational Poetry SeriesThe National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program.Every year since 1979 it has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry...
, for The Human Abstract - Howard Foundation Fellowship
- Residency at the MacDowell ColonyMacDowell ColonyThe MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
Work
- "Vernacular Architecture"; "Madame Cézanne as Sainte-Victoire"; "The Oldest Garden in the World"; "Nocturne"; "Bohemian Rhapsody", Boston Review, November/December 2007
- "Without Pity", Conjunctions 28, Spring 1997
- "The Human Abstract", subtext
- "The Relation of the Lion to the Book is the Number 5 ", subtext
- "Envoi", subtext
- "Primeval Islands"; "Why No New Planets Are Ejected from the Sun"; "Oil and Water", No: a journal of the arts, No. 3
- Turneresque (Burning DeckBurning Deck PressBurning Deck is a small press specializing in the publication of experimental poetry and prose. Burning Deck was founded by the writers Keith Waldrop and Rosmarie Waldrop in 1961.-Overview:...
, 2003) - Second Law. Bolinas, CA : Avenue B, 1993.9780939691081
Essay
- "Who Was Lorine Niedecker?" American Poet, Academy of American PoetsAcademy of American PoetsThe Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
, 2006
External links
- "Elizabeth Willis Homepage" at the Electronic Poetry Center
- Ron Silliman on Meteoric Flowers poet Ron SillimanRon SillimanRon Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...
talks about Meteoric Flowers on his blog, entry for Monday, October 23, 2006 - "Elizabeth Willis, PennSound