Eric Pankey
{{short description|American poet}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Eric Pankey
| image = Eric Pankey - 2015 National Book Festival (2).jpg
| alt = head shot of bearded poet with rimless glasses and buttoned down shirt
| caption = Eric Pankey at 2015 National Book Festival
| other_names =
| alma_mater = University of Missouri
University of Iowa
| occupation = Poet, artist
| employer = Washington University in St. Louis
George Mason University
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1959}}
| birth_place = Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
}}
Eric Pankey (born 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American poet and artist. He is married to the poet Jennifer Atkinson (born 1955).
Pankey's poetry has moved from the literal and narrative as in _Heartwood,_ towards the suggestiveness of Emerson, without the hopefulness implicit in Emerson's transcendentalism. In Pankey's poems, often written in free verse forms or in prose poetry, the hint of grand comprehensiveness is suggested, without the hope of absorption into a universalizing or redemptive whole. The result, as in his "Souvenir de Voyage" (2015 in Verse)—an implied answer to Baudelaire's "Invitation au Voyage," is a glimpse of redemption from which the speaker of the poems, and thus the reader, is blocked, a promise unfulfilled and perhaps unfulfillable. Behind this urge lies a religious impulse that may remind a reader of T. S. Eliot. Yet the persistence of the seeking separates Pankey from Samuel Beckett; he remains on the closer side of despair.
Life
He graduated with a BA from the University of Missouri in 1981 and in 1983, his MFA from University of Iowa.{{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/979|title=Eric Pankey | Academy of American Poets|publisher=poets.org|access-date=2015-04-08}} In 1987, after teaching English at the high school level and writing poetry, he became the director of the Creative Writing Program at Washington University in St. Louis.{{cite web | last =Brodeur | first =Brian | title =Eric Pankey | work =How A poem Happens | date =9 Jan 2009 | url =http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/01/eric-pankey-on-his-poem-old-brickyard.html}} He currently teaches at George Mason University.{{cite news| url=http://www.gmu.edu/news/gazette/dec96c/pankey.html| title=The Voice of Eric Pankey| author=Jeb Livingood| date=October 2002| access-date=2009-06-18| archive-date=2008-08-21| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821222104/http://www.gmu.edu/news/gazette/dec96c/pankey.html| url-status=dead}} He lives with his wife and daughter in Fairfax, Virginia.
His work has appeared in The Antioch Review,{{cite journal|title=The Antioch Review|author=Kingsley, J.D.|journal=The Antioch Review|date=2005|publisher=Antioch Review, Incorporated|issn=0003-5769|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfkDAAAAYAAJ|access-date=2015-04-08}} Antaeus,{{cite book|title=Antaeus 63: Autumn 1989|author=Halpern, D.|date=1989|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|isbn=9780880012263|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N_lYAAAAMAAJ|access-date=2015-04-08}} Denver Quarterly,{{cite book|title=Denver Quarterly|author=University of Denver|date=1992|issue=v. 26, no. 3|publisher=University of Denver.|issn=0011-8869|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fc4uAAAAIAAJ|access-date=2015-04-08}} Seneca Review,{{cite book|title=The Seneca Review|author1=Hobart Student Association|author2=Hobart College|author3=William Smith College|author4=William Smith Student Association|date=1984|issue=v. 14-15|publisher=Hobart Student Association|issn=0037-2145|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-9ZAAAAMAAJ|access-date=2015-04-08}} Quarry West,{{cite book|title=Quarry West|author1=University of California, Santa Cruz. College V.|author2=Porter College (University of California, Santa Cruz)|date=1990|issue=nos. 27-31|publisher=Quarry West|issn=0736-4628|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1y2xAAAAIAAJ|access-date=2015-04-08}} Superpresent,{{Cite journal|date=2021|title=from Essays in Idleness: a zuihitsu|url=https://indd.adobe.com/view/427d3bcd-28cb-43fd-a883-96e531fac7d5|journal=Superpresent|volume=2|pages=32–33|issn=2767-5289}} and AGNI.{{cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/agni/authors/E/Eric-Pankey.html|title=AGNI Online: Author Eric Pankey|publisher=bu.edu|access-date=2015-04-08}} His papers are held at Washington University Libraries.{{cite web|url=http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/mlc/pankey/pankey.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040815171219/http://www.library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/mlc/pankey/pankey.html|archive-date=2004-08-15|url-status=dead|title=Eric Pankey, 1959-. American author|access-date=2015-04-08}}
Awards
- 1984 Walt Whitman Award* 1984 Younger Poets Award from Academy of American Poets{{cite book |title=The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1985 |date=1984 |publisher=Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=0-911818-71-5 |page=414}} selected by Mark Strand
- Ingram Merrill Foundation Award
- 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/11164-eric-pankey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110603235636/http://www.gf.org/fellows/11164-eric-pankey |archive-date=2011-06-03 |url-status=dead|title=Eric Pankey - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|access-date=2015-04-08}}
- National Endowment for the Arts{{cite web|url=http://www.arts.endow.gov/features/writers/writersCMS/writer.php?id=05_14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080917092229/http://arts.endow.gov/features/writers/writersCMS/writer.php?id=05_14 |archive-date=2008-09-17 |url-status=dead|title=NEA Writers' Corner: Eric Pankey|author=National Endowment for the Arts|access-date=2015-04-09}}
Works
=Poetry=
- {{cite journal|url=http://archive.cortlandreview.com/features/08/spring/pankey.html|title=Film Still|journal=Courtland Review|date=Spring 2008}}
- {{cite journal| url=http://washingtonart.com/beltway/pankey.html| title=DREAM LANDSCAPE WITH THE OLD BRICKYARD ROAD CREEK AND BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON; THE PHRASE OF THINE ACTIONS; SAVANT OF BIRDCALLS; INTERLUDE; SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS SWEPT CLEAN| journal=The Beltway Poetry Quarterly| volume=3| issue=3| date=Summer 2002 }}
- {{cite journal| url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2002/autumn/pankey-final-thought/| journal=Virginia Quarterly Review| title=Final Thought| date=Autumn 2002| pages=667–668| access-date=2009-06-18| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906092232/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2002/autumn/pankey-final-thought/| archive-date=2008-09-06| url-status=dead}}
- {{cite journal| url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2002/autumn/pankey-eagle-headed-genie/| journal=Virginia Quarterly Review| title=An Eagle-Headed Genie Watering the Tree of Life| date=Autumn 2002| page=667| access-date=2009-06-18| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016002051/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2002/autumn/pankey-eagle-headed-genie/| archive-date=2008-10-16| url-status=dead}}
- {{cite journal| url=http://authormark.com/artman2/publish/Innisfree_6_21/A_Closer_Look_Eric_Pankey.shtml| title=READING IN BED; A WALK WITH MY FATHER; DEBTOR OF HAPPINESS; OVERCOAT; IN MEMORY; ABSTRACTION; SCAFFOLDING; THE PILGRIMAGE OF MY FATHER'S GHOST; APPROACHING ACCADEMIA: A NOCTURNE; IN SIENA, PROSPERO RECONSIDERS THE MARRIAGE AT CANA; THE AUGURY OF PROSPERO; SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS SWEPT CLEAN; HOW TO SUSTAIN THE VISIONARY MODE; THE ANNIVERSARY; EPITAPH; PIAZZA S. SPIRITO NO. 9; THE BACK-STORY; THE THOUSAND THISTLE SEEDS; BETWEEN WARS| journal=The Innisfree Poetry Journal| date=Mar 13, 2008 }}
=Books=
- {{cite book| title=Tending the Garden| publisher=Yellow Jar Press| year=1982 }} chapbook
- {{cite book | title=For the New Year | publisher=Atheneum | year=1984 | isbn=978-0-689-11507-3 | url=https://archive.org/details/fornewyearpoems00pank }}
- {{cite book| title=Heartwood | publisher=Orchises Press| year=1988| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LCp6b-8fE5AC&q=Eric+Pankey| isbn=978-0-914061-78-6}}
- {{cite book| title=Apocrypha| publisher=Knopf| year=1991 | isbn=978-0-679-40617-4 }}
- {{cite book | title=The Late Romances | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf | year=1997 | isbn=978-0-679-45454-0 | url=https://archive.org/details/lateromancespoem00pank }}
- {{cite book | title=Cenotaph | publisher=Knopf | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-375-40764-2 | url=https://archive.org/details/cenotaphpoems00pank }}
- {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cKDhouAVRH4C&q=Eric+Pankey| title=Oracle figures| publisher=Ausable Press| year=2003| isbn=978-1-931337-08-3 }}
- {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRPqwtkkmZsC&q=Eric+Pankey| title=Reliquaries| publisher=Ausable Press| year=2005| isbn=978-1-931337-12-0 }}
- {{cite book| title=The Pear as One Example: New & Selected Poems 1984–2008| publisher=Ausable Press| year=2008| isbn=978-1-931337-39-7 }}
- {{cite book| title=Trace| publisher=Milkweed Editions| year=2013| isbn=978-1-57131-873-2 }}
- {{cite book| title=Dismantling the Angel| publisher=Parlor Press| year=2014| isbn=978-1-60235-487-6 }}
- {{cite book| title=Crow-Work| publisher=Milkweed Editions| year=2015| isbn=978-1-57131-884-8 }}
=Anthologies=
- {{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/bestofprairiesch00hild| url-access=registration| quote=Eric Pankey.| title=Best of Prairie schooner| editor=Hilda Raz| publisher=University of Nebraska Press| year=2001| isbn=978-0-8032-8972-7 }}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|Eric Pankey}}
- [http://www.ericpankey.com/ official website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130206162808/http://www.ericpankey.com/ |date=2013-02-06 }}
- [http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0300/pankey/Interview.html "interview an interview with Eric Pankey", randomhouse]
- [http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/01/eric-pankey-on-his-poem-old-brickyard.html "Eric Pankey", January 9, 2009, How a Poem Happens]
- [http://blog.32poems.com/922/32-poems-interview-with-eric-pankey/ "32 Poems Interview with Eric Pankey", Serena M. Agusto-Cox, February 5, 2009, 32 Poems]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pankey, Eric}}
Category:Writers from Kansas City, Missouri
Category:Washington University in St. Louis faculty
Category:George Mason University faculty