Karl Kirchwey
| Karl Kirchwey | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 25, 1956 |
| Residence | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
Yale B.A. 1979 M.A. from Columbia. |
| Occupation |
Poet, Translator, Teacher, Literary curator |
Karl Kirchwey is an award–winningAmerican poet who has lived in both Europe and the United States and whose work is strongly influenced by the Greek and Roman past. He often looks to the classical world for inspiration with themes which have included loss, loneliness, nostalgia and modern atrocities, and how the past relates to the present. While he is best known for his poems, he also is a book reviewer, award-winning teacher of creative writing, translator, arts administrator,literary curator, and advocate for writers and writing. He was Director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y for thirteen years, directed and taught in the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr College from 2000–2010, served as Andrew Heiskell Arts Director at the American Academy in Rome from 2010–2013, and is currently Professor and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Boston University.
Kirchwey was born in 1956 and graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover in 1974 in the boarding school's first co-educational class which included jazz musician Bill Cunliffe, software executive Peter Currie, actor Dana Delany, painter Julian Hatton, writer Nate Lee, political commentator Heather Mac Donald, restaurateur Priscilla Martel, TV producer Jonathan Meath, editor Sara Nelson, and sculptor Gar Waterman. He attended Yale but described his first two undergraduate years as "unfocused and unproductive." He took a class on versification taught by Penelope Laurans which gave him the sense that he had an "ear for verse" but his work was "less than diligent" in his own estimation. He took a year off and worked at Cutler's Record Shop in New Haven. After his year off, he studied with poet John Hollander and discovered that it was possible to build a life around the task of writing poetry. Kirchwey described Hollander as a master of both English and American poetry and said:
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