John Skoyles (poet)

This article is about John Skoyles (poet). For John Skoyles, scientist and science writer, see John Skoyles (scientist).

John Skoyles (born December 11, 1949 in Queens, New York) is an American poet and writer.

Early years

John Skoyles was born in Flushing, New York, the son of Olga (Bertolotti), a housewife, and Gerard Skoyles, an envelope salesman. He attended Mater Christi High School, graduating in 1967. He did his undergraduate work at Fairfield University in Connecticut, and earned an M.A. in English and an M. F. A. at the University of Iowa.

Career

Skoyles has taught at Southern Methodist University, Sarah Lawrence College, Warren Wilson College and Emerson College. He directed the MFA Program at Warren Wilson from 1984 to 1992, and served as Chair of the Emerson College Writing, Literature and Publishing Department from 1994 to 2001. He is a member of the Writing Committee of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. where he served as Executive Director from 1992–94 and again from January to July 2007. He currently teaches at Emerson College and is the poetry editor of Ploughshares. The Permanent Press published his autobiographical novel, A Moveable Famine, in 2014. Recent books include Suddenly It's Evening: Selected Poems; Inside Job: New Poems; and The Nut File, a fiction/nonfiction hybrid.

His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and others.

More information about John Skoyles can be found on his website www.johnskoyles.org

Books

• A Little Faith, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1981)
• Permanent Change, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1991)
• The Smoky Mountain Cage Bird Society and Other Magical Tales from Everyday Life, nonfiction (New York: "Kodansha International, 1997)
• Definition of the Soul, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998)
• Generous Strangers and Other Moments from My Life, memoir (New York: Kodansha International, 1999) This is a re-titled paperback reprint of "The Smoky Mountain Cage Bird Society."
• Secret Frequencies: A New York Education, memoir (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003)
• The Situation, poetry (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007)
• A Moveable Famine, prose (The Permanent Press, 2014)
• Suddenly It's Evening: Selected Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2016)
• Inside Job: New Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2016)
• The Nut File (Quale Press, 2017)

External links

• John Skoyles Official Website
• Emerson College Faculty Profile
• Listen to "Three Shards" on Slate Magazine
• NPR Interview

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/31/autobiography-6 [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/my-mother-heidegger-and-derrida

Sources

Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2005.