Faculty

Stephen Burt

Associate Professor of English

Ph.D. Yale University, 2000
A.B., Harvard University, 1994

Stephen Burt grew up in and around Washington, D.C., attended Harvard (A.B. 1994) and Oxford, and received his Ph. D. from Yale in 2000. His critical study, Randall Jarrell and His Age, appeared from Columbia University Press in 2002; his book of poetry, Popular Music (CLP/Colorado) in 1999. Another book of poetry, Parallel Play, will appear from Graywolf in 2006.

Professor Burt reviews new poetry (and books about poetry) frequently for a variety of publications in the United States and Britain, among them The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, Poetry Review, The Times Literary Supplement, and the Yale Review. He has also edited for publication some posthumous writings of Randall Jarrell's, most recently Jarrell's lectures on W. H. Auden, which is available from Columbia University Press. Professor Burt also writes about rock music, comics, and genre fiction on occasion, or when asked.

Areas of Study

• Poetry in English-- all periods, but especially modern and contemporary, including UK and Commonwealth as well as American poetry
• Contemporary American literature
• Comics and graphic novels
• Gender and sexuality in literature

Spring 2007 Course

• Advanced Writing Workshop

Past Courses at Macalester

• Senior Seminar in Contemporary Poetry
• Poetry
• Twentieth Century Poetry    (Spring 2004 syllabus)
• Crafts of Writing: Poetry (Spring 2005 syllabus)
• Writing and Reading Poetry    (Fall 2004 syllabus)
• Advanced Poetry (Spring 2003 Syllabus)
• Literature of Adolescence (Spring 2003 Syllabus)
• Superheroes (Fall 2002 Syllabus)
• 20th Century Science Fiction
• Modern American Literature  (Fall 2004 syllabus)
• Contemporary American Literature (Spring 2005 Syllabus)
• History and Theory of Lyric (Spring 2002 Syllabus)
• Literature and Sexuality (Fall 2001 Syllabus)
• Bishop, Jarrell, Lowell (Spring 2001 Syllabus)

Awards and Honors

• Loft-McKnight foundation fellowship for poetry, 2002-03 (selected by Rachel Hadas)
• Warren Brooks award for Randall Jarrell and His Age
• Colorado Prize for Popular Music (selected by Jorie Graham)

Major Publications

• Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden (Columbia University Press, 2005)
• Randall Jarrell and His Age (Columbia University Press, 2002)
• Popular Music (CLP/ Colorado, 1999)
• “September 1 1939 Revisited, or, Poetry, Politics and the Idea of the Public.” American Literary History (ALH) (Fall 2003)
• “Portability, or, the Traveling Uses of a Poetic Idea.” Modern Philology 100:1 (2002).
• “Where Every Eye's a Guard: Rae Armantrout's Poetry of Suspicion.” Boston Review 27:2 (2002)
• “Thirteen or Fourteen: Paul Muldoon's Poetics of Adolescence.” New Essays on Paul Muldoon, ed. Tim Kendall (Univ. of Liverpool, forthcoming)
• “Becoming Literature: James Merrill.” Boston Review 26:3 (2001)

Links

• Personal Web Site