Ben Lerner

Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American poet, novelist, and critic. He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures. In 2004, Library Journal named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry. The Lichtenberg Figures appeared in a German translation in 2010,[1] for which it received the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie" in 2011, making Lerner the first American to receive this honor.[2]

Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School.[3] At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)".[4] Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.[5][6]

Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011.[7] It was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among other periodicals.[8][9][10][11][12]

In 2008 he began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British academic publication.[13] Lerner has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.[14]

Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.[15]

Contents

Awards

Books

Poetry

Novels

Anthologies

Selected web publications

Poetry
Other
Critical pieces, retrospectives, etc.

Reviews

The Lichtenberg Figures
Angle of Yaw
Mean Free Path
Leaving The Atocha Station
Other

External links

References

  1. ^ Von Florian Balke (2008-10-17). "Lux Publisher's page". Faz.net. http://www.faz.net/s/Rub8236AB3560F344538AC5D24797341929/Doc~E733E0F2C154B4A0AAC3194B96C8847E9~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  2. ^ a b "Stadt Münster: Kulturamt - Lyrikertreffen". Muenster.de. http://www.muenster.de/stadt/kulturamt/lyrikertreffen.html. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  3. ^ "Young poet to read works at Washburn", from The Topeka Capital-Journal, March 9, 2005, accessed October 31, 2006
  4. ^ "25 Important Books of Poetry of the 00s, by Brian Foley". Htmlgiant. 2009-12-14. http://htmlgiant.com/behind-the-scenes/25-important-books-of-poetry-of-the-00s-by-brian-foley/. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  5. ^ In physics, the “mean free path” of a particle is the average distance it travels before colliding with another particle. The poems in Lerner’s third collection, Mean Free Path (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), are full of discrete collisions—stutters, repetitions, fragmentations, recombinations—that track how language breaks up or changes course under the emotional pressure of the utterance.
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ "Ben Lerner". Narrative Magazine. http://www.narrativemagazine.com/authors/ben-lerner. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  8. ^ http://www.newstatesman.com/2011/11/ben-lerner-atocha-station
  9. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/25/books-of-the-year?newsfeed=true
  10. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/brieflynoted/2011/12/19/111219crbn_brieflynoted
  11. ^ http://nymag.com/arts/cultureawards/2011/recommended-books/
  12. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203518404577097062969878778.html
  13. ^ "The ‘angle of immunity’: face and façade in Beckett's Film - GAVIN - 2008 - Critical Quarterly - Wiley Online Library". .interscience.wiley.com. 2008-04-16. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119389312/HTMLSTART. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  14. ^ "Brooklyn College English Department - MFA Faculty". Depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu. http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/graduate/mfa/faculty.htm. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  15. ^ Link (2006-12-05). "Silliman's Blog". Ronsilliman.blogspot.com. http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/12/nature-of-influence-changes-over-time.html. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  16. ^ [2]
  17. ^ "Acclaimed young poet Ben Lerner relocates to Pittsburgh. - Books - Book Reviews & Features - Pittsburgh City Paper". Pittsburghcitypaper.ws. http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A41054. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  18. ^ "National Book Award 2006". Nationalbook.org. http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2006_p_lerner.html. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  19. ^ "Poetry Flash:NCBRAwards". Poetry Flash. http://www.poetryflash.org/NCBA.07.html. 
  20. ^ "New Fellows". Brown.edu. http://www.brown.edu/Divisions/Graduate_School/Howard_Foundation/NewFellows.html. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
  21. ^ Scroll down the page to find this review, which appears alongside Catherine Barnett's Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced, Christian Hawkey's The Book of Funnels, Sabrina Orah Mark's The Babies, and Gilbert Sorrentino's New and Selected Poems: 1958–1998.
  22. ^ The review is by Craig Morgan Teicher whose book of poems, Brenda Is in the Room and Other Poems, won the 2007 Colorado Prize for Poetry.
  23. ^ Note: This appears to be a dead link (accessed on April 25, 2010) to a piece by David Caplan, "On Poetic Curiosity A response to Lori Emerson, Demystifying the Digital, Re-animating the Book: A Digital Poetics". Probably not accessible unless at a Library that has a subscription to Project Muse.