Albert Goldbarth Biography

Albert Goldbarth is an American poet born January 31, 1948 in Chicago. He has won the National Book Critics Circle award for "Saving Lives" (2001) and "Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology" (1991), the only poet to receive the honor two times. He also won the Mark Twain Award for Humorous Poetry, awarded by the Poetry Foundation, in 2008. Goldbarth is a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

The poetry of Albert Goldbarth is widely praised, and he has published extensively, with more than 30 collections to his credit, including poetry and essays. He is known for his prolific production, his gregarious tone, his eclectic interests and his distinctive 'talky' style. In his review of Kitchen Sink, David Baker (poet) of The Kenyon Review says: “Albert Goldbarth is . . . a contemporary genius with the language itself . . . There is simply no contemporary poet like him.”

Goldbarth received his BA from the University of Illinois in 1969 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1971. He is the Adelle V. Davis Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University, and he teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Converse College.