Jeffrey Harrison

Jeffrey W. Harrison (b. Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American poet. His most recent poetry collection is The Names of Things: New & Selected Poems (The Wayweiser Press, 2006).^[1] His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Yale Review, Poets of the New Century. His honors include Pushcart Prizes, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, and Amy Lowell Traveling fellowships. He has taught at George Washington University, Phillips Academy, and College of the Holy Cross. He is currently on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.^[2] He lives in Dover, Massachusetts.^[3]

Reviews

It’s thrilling to read an entire book of poems written with such pleasure and gusto. Harrison writes with remarkable confidence about a range of ordinary things—salt, rowing a boat, discarded books, a stinking pond—and he gets more out of his subjects than seems possible.^[4]

Ultimately, in Harrison’s poems, when the gaze shifts away from the safety of what is known, a different kind of comprehension comes into focus.... Even in grief, his work moves irresistibly toward inquiry, full of yearning and thus, the appetite for life.... The tenacious scrutiny and wonder of questions in this book are Harrison’s most potent homage.^[5]

Published works

Full-Length Poetry Collections

• Into Daylight. Tupelo Press. April 2014. ISBN 978-1-936797-43-1.
• The Names of Things: New and Selected Poems. Dufour Eds. June 2006. ISBN 978-1-904130-20-8.
• Incomplete Knowledge. Four Way Books. October 2006. ISBN 978-1-884800-73-3.
• An Undertaking. Haven Street Press. January 2005. ISBN 978-0-9767012-1-7.
• Feeding the Fire. Sarabande Books. November 2001. ISBN 978-1-889330-64-8.
• Signs of Arrival. Copper Beech Press. October 1996. ISBN 978-0-914278-71-9.
• The Singing Underneath. E.P. Dutton. May 1988. ISBN 978-0-525-24640-4.

Honors and awards

• The Singing Underneath selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series,
• 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship ^[6]
• 1995 Ingram Merrill Foundation Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts
• two Pushcart Prizes
• 1988-1989 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship
• Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets.
• Reflection on the Vietnam War Memorial

References

1. The Wayweiser Press > Jeffrey Harrison
2. http://usm.maine.edu/stonecoastmfa/faculty/harrison.html
3. http://www.pw.org/content/jeffrey_harrison
4. Philip Levine (Fall 2003). "Feeding the Fire". Ploughshares. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007.
5. Melanie Drane (March–April 2007). "BOOK REVIEW Incomplete Knowledge". FOREWORD MAGAZINE.
6. http://www.gf.org/fellows/6277-jeffrey-w-harrison

External links

• Author's website
• "Incomplete Knowledge". AGNI 55. 2002.
• "Lord, Deliver Us This Affliction". AGNI 56. 2002.
• "To Kenneth Koch". AGNI 59. 2004.
• "Visitation". American Life in Poetry: Column 115 (Poetry Foundation).
• Ploughshares > Authors > Jeffrey Harrison