David Yezzi
Encyclopedia
David Dalton Yezzi is an American poet, actor and executive editor of The New Criterion
.
Yezzi is a former associate editor of Parnassus: Poetry in Review
and a former poetry editor at The New Criterion
.
"[T]here is a way in which most poetry disqualifies itself within a few lines," Yezzi said. "I would like to say that there are more good poems coming into our offices than we can use, but the truth is that we're always diligently on the lookout for good work. We sometimes solicit work from poets we admire so that we can fill the thirty to fifty pages a year. There's just not that much good verse out there."
Asked what living poets he admires, Yezzi mentioned Geoffrey Hill
, Richard Wilbur
, A. E. Stallings
, David Barber
, and Adam Kirsch
. He also mentioned the recently deceased Anthony Hecht
and Donald Justice
.
, and earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Carnegie Mellon University
and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Columbia University School of the Arts
.
In 1992, Herbert Leibowitz gave Yezzi his first editing job at Parnassus: Poetry in Review. Since then, he has held editing positions at The New York Observer and The New Criterion, returning to Parnassus as associate editor in 2000, and to The New Criterion as poetry editor in 2004.
Before becoming executive editor at The New Criterion, he directed the 92nd Street Y's
Unterberg Poetry Center, a reading series and writing program founded in 1939. Yezzi produced the weekly reading series at which poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction authors share and discuss their work. In addition, he oversaw the center's youth outreach initiative, adult literacy project, writing program and he expanded the number of poetic dramas and dramatic readings at the 92nd Street Y Poets' Theatre, which presents dramatic readings of plays written by poets.
Prior to becoming director of the poetry center in 2001, Mr. Yezzi was chief administrator of The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University
.
In October 2009, he was poet-in-residence at West Chester University, in West Chester, PA.
In 2006, Yezzi was producer for the stage adaptation of Glyn Maxwell's
book of poetry, The Sugar Mile.
In June 2007, Verse Theater Manhattan produced a workshop reading of his verse drama On the Rocks, directed by Jim Milton, at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.
In March 2010, Verse Theater Manhattan presented Yezzi's evening of verse monologues, Dirty Dan & Other Travesties, at the Bowery Poetry Club, with music by Chris Lee, and performances by Yezzi, Lee, Bruce Faulk, Tony Torn, Sayra Player, and Max Woertendyke.
).
In 1998, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University
(1998–2000).
His poems have been published in literary journals including The Atlantic, Poetry
, The Yale Review
, The Paris Review, The New Republic
, Poetry Daily and The New Criterion
. His literary essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Sun, The New Yorker
, The Wall Street Journal
, The (London) Times Literary Supplement, Poetry
and elsewhere.
Yezzi's poem "The Call" appeared in The Best American Poetry 2006
. The poem had originally appeared in New England Review
Of his latest book of poems, Azores, Adam Kirsch wrote in The New York Sun on April 23, 2008: "Like Hart Crane's 'Voyages,' 'Azores' is suffused with the eroticism of the sea. Unlike Crane, Mr. Yezzi concludes by recognizing that 'we are not suited to live long at sea,' that our 'lust for water' is countered by a 'fidelity to land.' The sophistication of Mr. Yezzi's language perfectly suits the sophistication of his understanding, and some of the poems in Azores — 'Very Like a Whale,' 'Dog's Life,' the brilliant and unexpected dramatic monologue 'The Ghost-Seer' — display a mastery reminiscent of Philip Larkin and Donald Justice, which no poet of Mr. Yezzi's generation can match. Anyone who enjoys those great civilized poets should read this one."
In December 2008, Azores was chosen as a Slate
magazine "Best Book of 2008."
The New Criterion
The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
.
Yezzi is a former associate editor of Parnassus: Poetry in Review
Parnassus (magazine)
Parnassus: Poetry in Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1973.The magazine states on its website that its aim has been "to provide a forum where poets, novelists, and critics of all persuasions could gather to review new books of poetry, including translations [....
and a former poetry editor at The New Criterion
The New Criterion
The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
.
Poetry and The New Criterion
Yezzi was formerly poetry editor of The New Criterion and still selects the poems for it. "It is important to the magazine to publish strong poems," he said in a 2006 interview. "We publish three to five pages of poetry in every issue," in addition to a special feature on poetry in April."[T]here is a way in which most poetry disqualifies itself within a few lines," Yezzi said. "I would like to say that there are more good poems coming into our offices than we can use, but the truth is that we're always diligently on the lookout for good work. We sometimes solicit work from poets we admire so that we can fill the thirty to fifty pages a year. There's just not that much good verse out there."
Asked what living poets he admires, Yezzi mentioned Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill is an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation...
, Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....
, A. E. Stallings
A. E. Stallings
Alicia Elsbeth Stallings is an American poet and translator. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow-Background:Stallings was raised in Decatur, Georgia and studied classics at the University of Georgia and University of Oxford. She is an editor with the Atlanta Review. In 1999, Stallings moved...
, David Barber
David Barber
David Barber is a British television actor, known for his numerous roles in ChuckleVision.- Filmography :*ChuckleVision*Steel River Blues*Merseybeat*The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc *Harry Enfield and Chums...
, and Adam Kirsch
Adam Kirsch
Adam Kirsch is an American poet and literary critic.-Early life and education:Kirsch is the son of lawyer, author, and biblical scholar Jonathan Kirsch, and a 1997 graduate of Harvard College.-Career:...
. He also mentioned the recently deceased Anthony Hecht
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
and Donald Justice
Donald Justice
Donald Justice was an American poet and teacher of writing. In summing up Justice's career, David Orr has written, "In most ways, Justice was no different from any number of solid, quiet older writers devoted to traditional short poems. But he was different in one important sense: sometimes his...
.
Life and career
Yezzi was born in Albany, New YorkAlbany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, and earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Columbia University School of the Arts
Columbia University School of the Arts
The Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
.
In 1992, Herbert Leibowitz gave Yezzi his first editing job at Parnassus: Poetry in Review. Since then, he has held editing positions at The New York Observer and The New Criterion, returning to Parnassus as associate editor in 2000, and to The New Criterion as poetry editor in 2004.
Before becoming executive editor at The New Criterion, he directed the 92nd Street Y's
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
Unterberg Poetry Center, a reading series and writing program founded in 1939. Yezzi produced the weekly reading series at which poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction authors share and discuss their work. In addition, he oversaw the center's youth outreach initiative, adult literacy project, writing program and he expanded the number of poetic dramas and dramatic readings at the 92nd Street Y Poets' Theatre, which presents dramatic readings of plays written by poets.
Prior to becoming director of the poetry center in 2001, Mr. Yezzi was chief administrator of The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
In October 2009, he was poet-in-residence at West Chester University, in West Chester, PA.
Drama
Yezzi was actor and co-founder of the San Francisco theater company, Thick Description, and has performed in works by Shakespeare, Shaw, Brecht, Goethe, Williams and others in the United States and Europe. In 2000, he performed with the company in Bertolt Brecht's The Visions of Simone Machard.In 2006, Yezzi was producer for the stage adaptation of Glyn Maxwell's
Glyn Maxwell
Glyn Maxwell is a British poet.-Early life:Though his parents are Welsh, Maxwell was born and raised in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. He studied English at Worcester College, Oxford. He began an MLitt there, but in 1987 moved to America to study poetry and drama with Derek Walcott at...
book of poetry, The Sugar Mile.
In June 2007, Verse Theater Manhattan produced a workshop reading of his verse drama On the Rocks, directed by Jim Milton, at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.
In March 2010, Verse Theater Manhattan presented Yezzi's evening of verse monologues, Dirty Dan & Other Travesties, at the Bowery Poetry Club, with music by Chris Lee, and performances by Yezzi, Lee, Bruce Faulk, Tony Torn, Sayra Player, and Max Woertendyke.
Awards and recognition
While in college, he won The Academy of American Poets College Prize and the Thomas Auclair Award for acting from Carnegie Mellon. In graduate school, he received the David Craig Austin Memorial Award from Columbia University (judged by Jorie GrahamJorie Graham
Jorie Graham is an American poet. The U.S. Poetry Foundation suggests "She is perhaps the most celebrated poet of the American post-war generation". She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor at Harvard, becoming the first woman to be appointed to this position...
).
In 1998, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
(1998–2000).
His poems have been published in literary journals including The Atlantic, Poetry
Poetry (magazine)
Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
, The Yale Review
Yale Review
The Yale Review is the self-proclaimed oldest literary quarterly in the United States. It is published by Yale University.It was founded originally in 1819 as The Christian Spectator. At its origin it was published to support Evangelicalism, but over time began to publish more on history and...
, The Paris Review, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Poetry Daily and The New Criterion
The New Criterion
The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
. His literary essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Sun, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, The (London) Times Literary Supplement, Poetry
Poetry (magazine)
Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
and elsewhere.
Yezzi's poem "The Call" appeared in The Best American Poetry 2006
The Best American Poetry 2006
The Best American Poetry 2006, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman , and poet Billy Collins, guest editor....
. The poem had originally appeared in New England Review
New England Review
The New England Review is a quarterly literary magazine published by Middlebury College. Founded in New Hampshire in 1978 by poet, novelist, editor and professor Sydney Lea and poet Jay Parini, it was published as New England Review & Bread Loaf Quarterly from 1982 , until 1991 as a formal...
Of his latest book of poems, Azores, Adam Kirsch wrote in The New York Sun on April 23, 2008: "Like Hart Crane's 'Voyages,' 'Azores' is suffused with the eroticism of the sea. Unlike Crane, Mr. Yezzi concludes by recognizing that 'we are not suited to live long at sea,' that our 'lust for water' is countered by a 'fidelity to land.' The sophistication of Mr. Yezzi's language perfectly suits the sophistication of his understanding, and some of the poems in Azores — 'Very Like a Whale,' 'Dog's Life,' the brilliant and unexpected dramatic monologue 'The Ghost-Seer' — display a mastery reminiscent of Philip Larkin and Donald Justice, which no poet of Mr. Yezzi's generation can match. Anyone who enjoys those great civilized poets should read this one."
In December 2008, Azores was chosen as a 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...
magazine "Best Book of 2008."
Books
- Sad Is Eros (Aralia Press, 2003), poetry chapbook
- 2003 in poetry2003 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry was opened at Queens University, Belfast, this year. It houses the Heaney Media Archive, a unique record of Heaney's entire oeuvre, as well as a full catalogue of...
: The Hidden Model (TriQuarterly/Northwestern), poetry, 96 pages, ISBN 0-8101-5144-8 ISBN 978-0-8101-5144-4 - Azores (Swallow Press/Ohio University, 2008), poetry, 49 pages, ISBN 978-0-8040-1112-9 ISBN 978-0-8040-1113-6
- A Fletching of Hackles, Fresh Verse by Ernest Hilbert and David Yezzi (Nemean Lion Press, 2009), poetry chapbook
- "Such Root Satisfaction," 3 X 5 [Three by David Yezzi, Five by Ernest Hilbert] (Nemean Lion Press, 2010), poetry chapbook
Anthologies
- The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (Swallow Press/Ohio University, 2009), 360 pages, ISBN 0-8040-1121-4 ISBN 978-0-8040-1121-1
Music
- His libretto for a new chamber opera by composer David Conte, Firebird Motel, premiered in 2003 and is to be published by E. C. Schirmer. It was recently released on CD by Arsis.
- His libretto for a new opera by Cyril Deaconoff, The Last Tycoon (based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel), will receive a workshop performance at West Bay Opera in the summer of 2011.
External links
- http://www.92y.org/content/david_yezzi.asp Biographical sketch of Yezzi at the 92nd Street Y Web site, also available on a Google cache at http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:9OoZR0DQ8hsJ:www.92y.org/content/david_yezzi.asp+%22David+Yezzi%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8
Articles by Yezzi online
- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/books/review/21YEZZIL.html?ex=1170478800&en=f39046993abadbb1&ei=5070"An Expert on Human Failings" brief article on Anthony HechtAnthony HechtAnthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
] in The New York Times Book Review - http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Bacon-s-theater-of-the-absurd-3962"Bacon's Theater of the Absurd" on the paitings of Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
] in The New Criterion - http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/the-amis-country-3128"The Amis Country" on the poetry of Kingsley AmisKingsley AmisSir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
] in The New Criterion
Poems online
Reviews of Yezzi's work
- Slate "Best Books of 2008" citation by Adam Kirsch for Azores
- Stephen Burt review of The Hidden Model
- Adam Kirsch review of The Hidden Model
- Ben Finane review of Firebird Motel
- Jay Batzner review of Firebird Motel