Paul Guest
Encyclopedia
Paul Guest is an American poet
and memoirist.
When he was twelve, Paul broke the third and fourth vertebrae in his neck in a bicycle accident, bruising his spinal cord
and paralyzing him from the neck down. He is a quadriplegic. He graduated from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
and from Southern Illinois University
with an M.F.A. in 1999. He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia
in Charlottesville, Virginia
.
His poems appear in Harper's, The Paris Review, Tin House
,The Kenyon Review
, The Missouri Review
, Slate
and elsewhere.
Online Poems
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and memoirist.
When he was twelve, Paul broke the third and fourth vertebrae in his neck in a bicycle accident, bruising his spinal cord
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...
and paralyzing him from the neck down. He is a quadriplegic. He graduated from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is a public university located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The University, often referred to as UTC or simply "Chattanooga" , is one of three universities and two other affiliated institutions in the University of Tennessee System; the others being in...
and from Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
with an M.F.A. in 1999. He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
in Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
.
His poems appear in Harper's, The Paris Review, Tin House
Tin House
Tin House is an American literary magazine and book publisher based in Portland, Oregon and New York City. The Tin House magazine was conceived in the summer of 1998 by Portland publisher Win McCormack. He envisioned a journal that would be graphically appealing and free of the stale substance...
,The Kenyon Review
The Kenyon Review
The Kenyon Review is a Literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, USA, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959...
, The Missouri Review
The Missouri Review
The Missouri Review is a literary magazine. Founded in 1978 by the University of Missouri, it publishes fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction quarterly. With its open submission policy, The Missouri Review receives 12,000 manuscripts each year and is known for printing previously unpublished...
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
and elsewhere.
Honors and awards
- 2011 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim 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...
in Poetry - 2010 Barnes & NobleBarnes & NobleBarnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
Discover Great New Writers series - 2007 Whiting Writers' AwardWhiting Writers' AwardThe Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
- 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry
- 2002 New Issues PressNew Issues PressNew Issues Press is a literary press associated with Western Michigan University. It was founded by poet and Western Michigan University professor Herbert S. Scott...
Poetry Prize
Reviews
To read Paul Guest's poetry is to expect the unexpected, to release oneself to dazzle, to performance, to the hurtle of his images, and the kind of strong emotional shifts that make one marvel at how the poem is able to contain such vast range. It is this quality, this synthesis of images, narratives, humor, and great pain, that calls into question any singular thread a reader might draw from My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge.
A Paul Guest poem likes to pull out fast in the first line, then zigzag from one eye-opening image to another: A high-speed, innervating trip all the way. The voice is edgy, hip: "In my neoprene monster skin, in my faux city/stormy with hellfire, in my broken/down dollhouse, in my tiny bed/that sleeps my toe, in my souvenir/sombrero, in that noontime shade/badly needed, in my die-cast/Corvette, cherry red, sun bright, comet/fast, in that shrunken hour/I cannot hold on to, in that dwindled dawn. ..."
Poetry about the extraordinary suffering of its author presents its readers with a special conundrum. On the one hand we don’t want to pretend that the suffering is incidental to the art; one of the more easily dispensable things that T.S. Eliot ever wrote was that “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.” But to err in the other direction—to read the suffering instead of the art—well, that’s what Oprah’s for.
Guest’s book takes a little love. He says “painful, pained thing[s]” and gets away with it. His poems are pleasurable, sloppy messes of images, thoughts, retractions, culpabilities, injuries, and salves. There is sex. There is the heaving, the suffering of love. There are familial complications. There is food and a moon and bruised gin. Porn. Pockets. Modern contraptions. Many pocked dreams. The excessive awkwardness of being alive. There is even a “tiny bed/ that sleeps [a] toe.” An “index” it certainly is.
External links
- "Author's blog"
- "Author's Twitter feed"
- "Character and Voice: Picks for National Poetry Month"
- "Paul Guest", Fishouse
- "An interview with poet Paul Guest", Poetry Foundation
- One More Theory About Happiness review, Creative Loafing Atlanta
Online Poems
- "The Intrusion of Ovid"; "LOVE IN THE SINGULAR"; "SMALL WONDER"; "THE ADVENT OF ZERO"; "PLUTO’S LOSS"; "CONSOLATION FOR VIRGIL"; "NOTES FOR MY BODY DOUBLE"; "Ode", The Adirondack Review
- "Apologia", Octopus, Issue 7
- "At Night, In November, Trying Not To Think Of Asphodel," "Austria," Bordering On The Tragic," "Oblivion: Letter Home, "Oblivion: Letter Home"
- "DONALD DUCK'S LAMENT", Diagram 3.5
- "Landscape With Décolletage", Slate, May 7, 2002
- "Plenitude", Crazyhorse, Number 67
- "On the Persistence of the Letter as a Form"