Albert Goldbarth

Albert Goldbarth is the Adele M. Davis Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University.  Professor Goldbarth received his BA from the University of Illinois and his MFA from the University of Iowa.  The only poet to have twice been awarded the Book Critics Circle Award (in 1991 & 2001), Professor Goldbarth’s prolific and influential work includes thirty books in print.  This varied body of work includes some of the most heavily anthologized poems and essays of the day.

Coprolites (1973, poetry)
Opticks (1974, poetry)
Comings Back (1976, poetry)
Curve, Overlapping Narratives (1977, poetry)
Different Fleshes, a Novel/Poem (1979, poetry)
Ink, Blood, Semen (1980, poetry)
Faith (1981, poetry)
Who Gathered and Whispered Behind Me (1981, poetry)
Arts & Sciences (1986, poetry)
Delft (1990, essay-poem)
Popular Culture (1990, poetry)
Heaven and Earth, A Cosmology (1991, poetry)
The Gods (1993, poetry)
Marriage, and Other Science Fiction (1994, poetry)
Great Topics of the World, Essays (1994, essays)
Adventures in Ancient Egypt (1996, poetry)
Beyond (1998, poetry)
Many Circles (2001, essays)
Pieces of Payne (2001, novel)
Combinations of the Universe (2003, poetry)
Budget Travel through Space and Time (2005, poetry)
Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems 1972-2007 (2007, poetry)

In his review of Kitchen Sink, Professor Goldbarth’s New and Selected Poems published in 2007 from Gray Wolf Press, David Baker of The Kenyon Review says: “Albert Goldbarth is . . . a contemporary genius with the language itself . . . There is simply no contemporary poet like him.”

Professor Goldbarth eschews email but can reached via the Wichita State University Department of English.

In recognition of his contribution to American humor, the Poetry Foundation awarded Albert Goldbarth its Mark Twain Poetry Award, part of the foundation's annual Pegasus Awards. His next collection, To Be Read in 500 Years, will be out from Graywolf Press in May.