Michael Gessner

Michael Gessner received his undergraduate degree in English literature from Wayne State University in Detroit; master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder; an appointment to the department of English as an Andrew Mellon Professor, University of Arizona, and directed the Honors Program at Central Arizona College. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he has been a finalist and semi-finalist in various competitions including "Discovery"/The Nation, the Pablo Neruda Award, North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize, and has given readings and presentations at state poetry societies and organizations; to chapters of the AAUW, nursing facilities, Casa Libre en la Solana, colleges and universities in PA, NY, CO, CA, AZ, University College Dublin, the American-Irish Historical Society, (NYC), and Cambridge University. Foreign publications include poems in Allegro, (UK,) Amethyst Review, (UK,) Amaryllis, (UK,) The French Literary Review, ("Place des Vosges," "Le Moulin de la Vierge,") La Citta Immaginaria, The Oxford Magazine, (UK,) and Rue des Beaux-Arts (Paris, "Wilde's Tomb.") He served as creative writing judge for the National Council Teachers of English, and for La Roca, Florence State Penitentiary; assisted in establishing creative writing programs for Navajo gifted and talented at Ganado, and Tuba City, AZ. His work has been called "Structurally ingenious," Jonathan Galassi, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and poems from Beast Book were found to be "Lively and smart and musical," (Robert Pinsky.) In his foreword to Selected Poems, Tyler Meier wrote: "To my ear, Michael Gessner's oeuvre chimes distinctly and gorgeously with Merrillesque tones, but piqued with Auden's love of the clear-eyed. This is a collection interested in way-finding across a life's work; it is Keatsian in its capabilities, both of the negative sort and not." Michael lives in Tucson with his wife, a water colorist.  Their son, Chris writes for screen.