Photo Credit: Marion Ettlinger

David Biespiel

b. 1964

Current City, State, Country

Portland, Oregon, USA

Birth City, State, Country

Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Biography

David Biespiel is the author of six collections of poetry, four books of nonfiction, and is the editor of two anthologies. His most recent books include: A Place of Exodus: Home, Memory, and Texas, Republic Café, The Education of a Young Poet, which was selected a Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers, A Long High Whistle, which received the Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction, and The Book of Men and Women, which was chosen for Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation and received the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. He is a contributing writer at the New Republic, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Rumpus, and Slate. Recipient of Lannan, National Endowment for the Arts, and Stegner fellowships, he has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award. He has taught at Stanford University, University of Maryland, George Washington University, and Wake Forest University, in addition to other colleges and universities. He is Poet-in-Residence at Oregon State University where he teaches in the graduate Creative Writing Program, and he is founder of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters.

Published Works

Poetry
Republic Café (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2019)
Charming Gardeners (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2013)
The Book of Men and Women (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2009)
Wild Civility (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003)
Shattering Air (BOA Editions, 1996)

Nonfiction
A Place of Exodus: Home, Memory, and Texas (Kelson Books, 2020)
The Education of a Young Poet (Counterpoint Press, 2017)
A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry (Antilever Press, 2015)
Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces (Kelson Books, 2010)

Anthologies
Poems of the American South. Everyman’s Library (Random House, 2014)
Long Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets (Oregon State University Press, 2006)

Recordings
Citizen Dave: Selected Poems, 1996-2010 (Argot Studios, 2010)

Limited Edition
Pilgrims & Beggars (Portlandia Books, 2002)

Author Site

Links to Sample Works

Video Reading

Current Title

Poet in Residence, Oregon State University

Education

Stanford University, Stegner Fellow, 1993-1995
University of Maryland, MFA, 1991
Boston University, 1986

Languages of Publication(s) and Poets Translated

Hebrew (Yehuda Amichai), Latin (Catullus, Ovid)

Subject Matter

Antisemitism, Childhood, Cultural Identity, Diaspora, Eastern Europe, Family, Friendship, Grief & Elegy, Jewishness, Loss, Love, Midrash, Mythology, Politics, Sex, Torah, War

Genre

Fiction, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Poetry

Profile Created By

Ruth Joseph