David Yezzi

David Yezzi

David Dalton Yezzi (born 1966) is an American poet, editor, actor ^[1]and professor. He currently teaches poetry in the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University.

Life

Yezzi was born in Albany, New York,^[2] 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.^[3]

Career

Yezzi was Director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City from 2001 to 2005 and has worked as executive editor of The New Criterion, associate editor of Parnassus: Poetry in Review, and on the staff of The New York Observer.^[3] He is currently the editor of "The Hopkins Review" and continues to serve as poetry editor of TNC.

Yezzi was a 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.^[3] In March 2010, Verse Theater Manhattan presented Yezzi's evening of verse monologues, Dirty Dan & Other Travesties, at the Bowery Poetry Club.

In 1998, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University (1998–2000).^[3]

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.^[3]

Yezzi's poem "The Call" was included in The Best American Poetry 2006 and "Minding Rites" appeared in The Best American Poetry 2012.

In December 2008, Azores was chosen as a Slate magazine "Best Book of 2008." In 2015, Birds of the Air was a finalist for the Poets' Prize.

Works

• Birds of the Air (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013), poetry, 88 pages, ISBN 978-0887485718
• Azores (Swallow Press/Ohio University, 2008), poetry, 49 pages, ISBN 978-0-8040-1112-9 ISBN 978-0-8040-1113-6
• The Hidden Model (TriQuarterly/Northwestern, 2003), poetry, 96 pages, ISBN 0-8101-5144-8; ISBN 978-0-8101-5144-4, 2003 in poetry
• Two Ranges [Vertical] by Ernest Hilbert and David Yezzi (Nemean Lion Press, 2013), hand-sewn, signed-limited concertina book
• Tomorrow & Tomorrow with an afterword by Denis Donoghue (Exot Books, 2012), ISBN 978-0-9844249-7-9
• Such Root Satisfaction, 3 X 5 [Three by David Yezzi, Five by Ernest Hilbert] (Nemean Lion Press, 2010)
• A Fletching of Hackles, Fresh Verse by Ernest Hilbert and David Yezzi (Nemean Lion Press, 2009)
• Sad Is Eros (Aralia Press, 2003)
• Yezzi is the editor of 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, 2009 in poetry+
• His libretto for a new chamber opera by composer David Conte, Firebird Motel, premiered in 2003 and was released on CD by Arsis.^[3]

References

1. Interview (Ujterberg Poetry Center) with Ernest Hibert 'Fiction' The Cortland Review issue 32 June 2006
2. review.com/issue/32/yezzi_i.html An Interview with David Yezzi by Ernest Hilbert, The Cortland Review, Issue 32, June 2006, accessed February 1, 2007
3. Google Cache of biographical sketch page of David Yezzi at 92nd Street Y Web site, accessed February 1, 2007

External links

• Biographical sketch of Yezzi at the 92nd Street Y Web site, also available on a Google cache at
• "An Expert on Human Failings" brief article on Anthony Hecht in The New York Times Book Review
• "Bacon's Theater of the Absurd" on the paitings of Francis Bacon in The New Criterion
• "The Amis Country" on the poetry of Kingsley Amis in The New Criterion
• "Cough"
• "False Fire"
• "Acceptance Speech"