Wally Swist is an American poet

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 writer. He is best known for his poems about nature. A spirituality unfettered to any specific religion pervades much of his work. He is also an Independent Scholar.

Biography

Swist was born April 26, 1953 in New Haven, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

. He was active in the Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 community from 1973-1980. He currently makes his home in South Amherst, Massachusetts

South Amherst, Massachusetts

South Amherst is a census-designated place in the town of Amherst in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,039 at the 2000 census...

.

Writing

Swist has published over one hundred feature articles and reviews, yet his focus has been writing poetry. His poems have appeared in literary magazines, anthologies, and popular magazines such as Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

. Readings of his work are online at National Public Radio and Sahara: A Journal of New England Poetry published a special issue devoted to his work in the winter of 2003.

Swist has also contributed significantly to North American haiku literature both as his decade-long stint as Book Review Editor of Modern Haiku (1987–1997), and with the nearly 1,000 haiku he published in a multitude of literary journals, out of an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 that he composed.

He is an authority on fellow poet Robert Francis (poet)

Robert Francis (poet)

Robert Francis was an American poet who lived most of his life in Amherst, Massachusetts.-Life:Robert Francis was born on August 12, 1901 in Upland, Pennsylvania . He graduated from Harvard University in 1923. He would later attend the Graduate School of Education at Harvard where he once said...

, a friend and literary mentor.

Fellowships, Awards, and Honors

Swist was awarded Artists Fellowships in Poetry from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts in 1978 and in 2003. The Trustees of the Estate of Robert Francis awarded him three writing residencies at Fort Juniper, the Robert Francis Homestead, in North Amherst, Massachusetts

North Amherst, Massachusetts

North Amherst is a census-designated place in the town of Amherst in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,019 at the 2000 census...

, in the autumn of 1998, and two back-to-back residencies from September 2003 through August 2005.

He was twice awarded the Museum of Haiku Literature (Tokyo) Award (Frogpond, XIII: 2, 1990 and Frogpond, XVIII: 3, 1995). His selected haiku, The Silence Between Us, was published by Brooks Books in their Goodrich Haiku Masters series in 2005.

Swist's full-length volume of love poems, Luminous Dream, was a finalist for the 2010 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize.

Yusef Komunyakaa selected Swist's full-length volume Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love as a co-winner in the Crab Orchard Series Open Poetry Competition, and Southern Illinois University Press will publish the book in the spring of 2012.

Documentary

A short documentary film regarding his work as a poet and a writer, In Praise of the Earth: The Poetry of Wally Swist, was released in 2008 by award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Wilda (Hadley, MA: WildArts).

Books and chapbooks

• Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012.
• Blessing and Homage, Cambridge, MA and Chicago, IL: Timberline Press, 2012.
• Luminous Dream, Cave Spring, GA: FutureCycle Press, 2010.
• Mount Toby Poems, Fulton, MO: Timberline Press, 2009.
• The Silence Between Us: The Selected Haiku of Wally Swist, Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2005.
• Veils of the Divine, Newtown, CT: Hanover Press, 2003.
• The White Rose, Fulton, MO: Timberline Press, 2000.
• The New Life, Hartford, CT: Plinth Books, 1998; Second Edition, 2003.
• The Mown Meadow: First Selected Haiku and Sequences, 1977-1994, San Diego, CA: Los Hombres Press, 1996.
• Train Whistle, Aylmer, Quebec, Canada: Proof Press, 1996.
• Blowing Reeds, Fulton, MO: Timberline Press, 1995.
• For the Dance, Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1991.
• The Gristmill’s Trough, Richland Center, WI: Hummingbird Press, 1991.
• Sugaring Buckets, Battle Ground, IN: High/Coo Press, 1989.
• Unmarked Stones, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada: Burnt Lake Press, 1988.
• Chimney Smoke, La Crosse, WI: Juniper Press, 1988.
• Waking Up the Ducks, Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1987.
• Of What We’re Given, Guilford, CT: Dunk Rock Books, 1980.
• New Haven Poems, Hamden, CT: Connecticut Fireside Press, 1977.

Scholarly monograph

• The Friendship of Two New England Poets: Robert Frost and Robert Francis, A Lecture Presented at the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, New Hampshire, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.

Anthology appearances

• In the Garden of Poetry: 1992-2011, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012.
• What's Nature Got to Do with Me?: Staying Wildly Sane in a Mad World, Prescott, AZ: Native West Press, 2011.
• Solace in So Many Words, Glenview, IL: Hourglass Books/Weighed Words LLC, 2011.
• The Light in Ordinary Things, Berkeley, CA: Fearless Books
  Fearless Books
  Fearless Books is an independent publisher, located in Berkeley, California, and founded in 1997 by D. Patrick Miller.Fearless Books comprises several divisions, including its Fearless Poetry Series which is run by co-editors D...
  
  , 2009.
• From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright, Duluth, MN: Lost Hills Books, 2008.
• Terebess Asia Online, Budapest, Hungary: Terebess Asia Online [TAO], 2008.
• Haiku schreiben: Einfuhrung in die Kunst den Augenblick in Worte zu fassen, Lonnie Hill DuPont, Editor, Hamburg, Germany: Haiku Verlag, 2004.
• Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage, Ginny Lowe Connors, Editor, Hartford, CT: Grayson Books, 2003.
• The Duchess of Malfi’s Apricots and Other Literary Fruits, Robert Palter, Editor, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
• Haiku: Ancient and Modern, Jackie Hardy, Editor, Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle & Company, Inc., 2002.
• Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure, Wendy Maltz, Editor, Foreword by Thomas Moore, Novato, CA: New World Library, 2001.
• Stories from Where We Live: The North Atlantic Coast, Sara St. Antoine, Editor, Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2000.
• The Haiku Anthology, Cor van den Heuvel, Editor, New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999.
• Haiku sans frontieres, Andre Duhaime, Editor and Translator, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Les Editions David, 1998.
• Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, Beverly Hills, CA: Monitor Book Company, 1997.
• Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, William Higginson, Editor, Tokyo, Japan & New York, NY: Kodansha International, 1996.
• Place of the Long River: A Connecticut River Anthology of Poetry and Prose with Views from the Source to the Sound, Jim Lee, Editor and Master Printer, Glastonbury, CT: Blue Moon Press, 1995.
• A Haiku Path: The Haiku Society of America, 1968-1988, HSA Twentieth Anniversary Book Committee, New York, NY: Haiku Society of America, 1994.
• Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku, Bruce Ross, Editor, Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle & Company, Inc., 1993.
• Five Connecticut Poets: Joseph Payne Brennan, Gerene Freeman, Richard Geller, Robert Shaw, and Wally Swist, Albert E. Callan, Editor, Hamden, CT: Connecticut Fireside Press, 1975.

Broadsides

• "Ode to Elizabeth Park," Glastonbury, CT: Blue Moon Press, 2011.
• "For Walt Whitman," Fulton, MO: Timberline Press, 2010.
• "To Psyche," Northampton, MA: Drive-By Poets, 2008.
• "Putting Up the Mailbox," Fulton, MO: Timberline Press, 2007.
• "The Energy Level," Northampton, CT: Drive-By Poets, 2005.
• "Heron," Hartford, CT: Hartford Public Library, 2003.
• "Accompaniment," Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 2003.
• "In You," Jamaica, VT: Bull Thistle Press, 1995.
• "old man sweeping" [3 Haiku], Richmond, MA: Mad River Press, 1988.

Essays

• Fair Warning: Leo Connellan and His Poetry, A Review of Leo Connellan's "Death in Lobsterland," Tokyo, Japan: Printed Matter, 2011, Sheila Murphy and Marilyn Nelson, Editors.
• "A Reminiscence of Robert Spiess: The Tao of Compassion and a Level Gaze," Santa Fe, NM: Modern Haiku, Summer 2011, Charles Trumbull, Editor.
• "The Friendship of Robert Frost and Robert Francis: High-pressure Weather and Country Air," Orono, ME: Puckerbrush Review, Puckerbrush Press, Issue xxi, ii, Winter/Spring 2003, Puckerbrush Press, Constance Hunting, Editor.
• Mountain by John Wills, Ayler, Quebec, Canada: Raw Nervz Haiku, Proof Press, Volume 5, Number 2, Summer 1998, Dorothy Howard, Editor.
• "The Conclusion of the Grail Legend, Trout Fishing, and the Art of Writing Haiku Poetry," Ocolind iazul/Round the Pond, Antologie de/An Anthology by Ion Codrescu, Editor, Constanta, Romania, Editura Muntenia, 1994.
• "Tuning Fork on the Sidewalk of Dreams:" Bert Meyers's The Wild Olive Tree & The Blue Cafe, Praises, Chicago,IL: Poetry East, Number Thirty-Four, Fall 1992, Richard Jones, Editor.