Peter Nickowitz

{{short description|American dramatist}}

{{Infobox writer

| image =

| imagesize =

| name = Peter Nickowitz

| occupation = Poet, playwright, screenwriter

| nationality = American

| notableworks = Cinema Vernacular
The Debutante
Lulu
Jonathan
The Alice Complex
Backgammon at the Louvre
Songs & Statues

| website = {{URL|http://www.peternickowitz.com/}}

}}

Peter Barr Nickowitz is an American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.

Nickowitz grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut and graduated from Brandeis University and New York University, where he received a Ph.D. in English and American literature.{{cite web|url=https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/dramatic-writing/peternickowitz |title=Peter Nickowitz |publisher=NYU Tisch |accessdate=2016-05-10}}

He is the author of Rhetoric and Sexuality: The Poetry of Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Merrill (Palgrave, 2006).{{cite book|url=http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781403968494 |title=Rhetoric and Sexuality |work=SpringerLink |publisher=Palgrave |accessdate=2016-05-10}}

Nickowitz's debut collection of poems, Cinema Vernacular, was released in 2014 by Publication Studio.{{cite web|url=http://www.publicationstudio.biz/books/278 |title=Cinema Vernacular by Peter Nickowitz |publisher=Publication Studio |accessdate=2016-05-10}} For the Huffington Post, Carol Muske-Dukes writes: "Cinema Vernacular is built around a protagonist's ongoing everyday and romantic affairs in two cities: New York and Paris. The reader finds herself drawn into the poetry "movie," drawn into the fluid "camera work" of the "director's cut" — and then drawn past all these elements to the heart of the poem, the place where form, all form, becomes superfluous and the poem itself speaks unforgettably to the reader."{{cite web|author=Carol Muske-Dukes|author-link=Carol Muske-Dukes|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-muskedukes/poets-in-and-out-of-form_b_7482260.html |title=Poets in and out of Form |date=June 2015 |work=Huffington Post |accessdate=2016-05-13}} In Goodreads.com Kevin Killian writes: "Cinema Vernacular is a stunning new collection of poetry by Peter Nickowitz. Using forms like screenplays and even films in his poetics, Cinema Vernacular is porous, deft, concerned with our relationship to the intangible and how desire filters through image and text. These poems mark, with recognizable pathos and sharp turns of hilarity, the arrival of a major voice."{{cite web|author=Kevin Killian|author-link=Kevin Killian|url=https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1409147455 |title=Cinema Vernacular |publisher=Goodreads |accessdate=2016-05-13}}

His poems have appeared in literary magazines including The Paris Review,{{cite web|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/back-issues/169 |title=The Paris Review No. 169, Spring 2004 |publisher=The Paris Review |accessdate=2016-05-10}} Barrow Street,{{cite web|url=http://www.barrowstreet.org/win03.html |title=Barrow Street Winter 2003 |publisher=Barrow Street |accessdate=2016-05-10}} Shampoo,{{cite web|url=http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooThirtyfive/nickowitz.html |title=Shampoo Thirty-Five |publisher=Shampoo Poetry |accessdate=2016-05-10}} Slope,{{cite web|url=http://slope.org/archive/issue15/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030906085954/http://www.slope.org/archive/issue15/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=September 6, 2003 |title=Slope 15 |publisher=Slope |accessdate=2016-05-10}} Marsh Hawk Review,{{cite web|url=http://marshhawkreview.blogspot.com/2010/04/peter-nickowitz.html |title=Marsh Hawk Review |publisher=Marsh Hawk Press |accessdate=2016-05-10}} and Third Coast,{{cite web|url=http://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com/archives/fall07/ |title=Third Coast Fall 2007 |publisher=Third Coast |accessdate=2016-05-10}} and he was a National Poetry Series finalist.

His plays include The Alice Complex (with Kate Mara and Harriet Harris;{{cite web|url=http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=30160|title='The Alice Complex' to Star Elbrick and Banes|work=Broadwayworld.com|date=2016-05-13}} Lisa Banes and Xanthe Elbrick{{cite news|author=Anita Gates |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/theater/20fringe.html?_r=0 |title=The Human Condition, Often in Need of Repair | newspaper=The New York Times | date=19 August 2008 |accessdate=2016-05-13}}) ("Smart, incisive..." - NY Times), Backgammon at the Louvre,Jones, Kenneth. [http://www.playbill.com/article/banes-and-elbrick-star-in-feminist-thriller-for-fringenyc-com-152331 "Banes and Elbrick Star in Feminist Thriller for FringeNYC"], Playbill, Retrieved 2016-05-10. and Songs & Statues.{{cite web|url=http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/SONGS-STATUES-A-New-Play-By-Peter-Nickowitz-Plays-710719-At-Stella-Adler-Studio-20090629 |title=SONGS&STATUES A New Play By Peter Nickowitz Plays 7/10-7/19 At Stella Adler Studio |publisher=Broadway World |accessdate=2016-05-10}} They have been produced at the Cherry Lane, Dixon Place, The Blank Theatre, and Stella Adler Studio, where he was the 2008-09 Harold Clurman Playwright-in-Residence.

His screenplays (co-written with Bill Oliver) include The Debutante,{{cite web|url=http://billoliverdirector.com/?q=debutante |title=The Debutante |publisher=Bill Oliver |accessdate=2016-05-13}} which received a grant from the Jerome Foundation, Lulu, a drama based on the life of silent film star Louise Brooks, which was optioned by Neve Campbell and Peer Oppenheim, and Jonathan, about a young man who has a condition in which he shares his body with another consciousness.{{cite news|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tribeca-film-festival-2018-feature-film-lineup-1092766 |title=Tribeca: Liz Garbus' N.Y. Times in Trump Era Doc, Female-Directed Films Highlight Festival Lineup |newspaper=The Hollywood Reporter |first=Hilary |last=Lewis |date=7 March 2018}}

He has taught at the LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York, the University of Southern California, and The New School. He currently teaches in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University.