August Kleinzahler

Brief Bio

AUGUST KLEINZAHLER is the author of six collections of poetry. Of his most recent work The Economist wrote, "Kleinzahler's poems in Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow jerk and snap their fingers at you all the time. High an low vocabularies hang out together. They are hectic, pulsing things, ever alive to the music of words when spoken. The atmosphere is that of some all-night emporium in which every item is on sale for one dollar. In these democratic qualities, they take us back to Walt Whitman and his inventive recklessness with words. They are expansive, energetic and, from time to time, a touch crazed: an authentically American voice."

Allen Ginsberg writes, "August Kleinzahler's verse line is always precise, concrete, intelligent and rare--that quality of 'chiseled' verse memorable in Basil Bunting's and Ezra Pound's work. A loner, a genius."

He is the author of

Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1995)

as well as Like Cities, Like Storms (Pan American, 1992), Earthquake Weather (Moyer Bell, 1989), Storm over Hackensack (Moyer Bell, 1985) and A Calendar of Airs (Coach House Press, 1978).

August Kleinzahler's work has appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, among them American Poetry Review, Harper's, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Times, London Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, San Diego Reader, The Threepenny Review, and The Washington Post Book World.

Kleinzahler has been anthologized in Postmodern American Poetry, A Norton Anthology (1994), Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry since 1975 (Scribners, 1994), Moment's Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose (Coffee House Press, 1993), Best American Poetry: 1988 and 1995 (Scribners), and Pushcart Prize: 1985-1986 and 1995-1996.

He is the recipient of awards from the General Electric Foundation, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Readers' Digest Fund, and, most recently, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and letters.

August Kleinzahler was born in Jersey City in 1949. He has lived in San Francisco for the past 15+ years but is currently poet-in-residence for the fall semester at Brown University.

An example of his work is Ruined Histories.

August Kleinzahler will be reading with W.S. Di Piero on November 7, at 7:30 pm in Bartos Theatre in the Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge. For further information call 253-9469.

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