Chris Stroffolino

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Chris Stroffolino is an American poet and musician, best known for his work with Continuous Peasant and The Silver Jews

Stroffolino, (born in Reading, Pennsylvania March 20, 1963) attended Albright College, Temple University and Bard College, The University of Massachusetts, before receiving a Ph.D. at Suny-Albany with a dissertation on William Shakespeare in 1998.

After graduating, Stroffolino moved to New York City, to work as a secretary for the artist Pat Steir when he was contacted by David Berman, who he had met in 1992 while busking in Amherst, Massachusetts, to join The Silver Jews for their American Water album. Subsequently Stroffolino joined Brett Eugene Ralph to play with Rising Shotgun on the Steve Albini-produced Don't Forsake Kentucky album. Stroffolino also played with NYC band, Volumen and formed an Anne Sexton tribute band at the behest of The Poetry Society in America in 2001, before leaving to NYC for Oakland to take a job as Distinguished Visiting Poet at St. Mary's College of Moraga. Within a year, Stroffolino had met guitarist Peter Nochisaki, drummer Brandon Watson, the original core of Continuous Peasant.

Continuous Peasant's first album, Exile In Babyville, was released on Good Forks on August 2003. Their second album, Intentional Grounding appeared in August of 2005 as the band embarked on their first U.S. and Canadian tour. By the fall of 2005, Nochisaki had become a part-time member of the band after relocating to Portland (where he later became the drummer for Steve Malkmus and The Jicks, and Stroffolino suffered a permanent crippling injury from a bike accident. After Hurricane Katrina, Stroffolino released under the Continuous Peasant name, a New Orleans Benefit CD, to raise money for The Vanguard People's Hurricane Relief Fund with a new song inspired by the event. In 2006, Stroffolino was in the studio again, reportedly working on a new album.

Stroffolino's seven books of poetry published during this time include: Incidents (1990, Vendetta Books), Oops (1991, backyard press; 1994, Pavement Saw Press); Cusps (1995, Aerial/ Edge Books); Light As A Fetter (1997, Situations Press), Stealer's Wheel (1999, Hard Press); Scratch Vocals (Potato Clock, 2003) and Speculative Primitive (2005, Tougher Disguises). He has also co-edited, with David Rosenthal, a study guide to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (2000, IDG Books). His book of poetry criticism, Spin Cycle (Spuyten Duyvil Press) was published in 2001. His music criticism has appeared in such magazines as Kitchen Sink, and The Big Takeover