Stephen Burt

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Poetry Critic

Stephen Burt is a poet, literary critic, and professor. In 2012, the New York Times called Burt “one of the most influential poetry critics of his generation.” Burt grew up around Washington, DC and earned a BA from Harvard and PhD from Yale. Burt has published three collections of poems: Belmont (2013), Parallel Play (2006), and Popular Music (1999).

Burt's works of criticism include The Poem is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (2016); Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (2009), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Art of the Sonnet, written with David Mikics (2010); The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence (2007); Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden (2005), with Hannah Brooks-Motl; and Randall Jarrell and His Age (2002).

Burt has taught at Macalester College and is now Professor of English at Harvard University.

(SOURCE: The Poetry Foundation)

Related

Works
Image of The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them
Interviews
Magazines on coffee table American Poetry Has Never Been So Diverse

When you hear "poet", what kind of person comes to mind?  Emily Dickinson in her white dress? Robert Frost in the snowy woods, with his horse?  Or contemporary poets like Rita Dove or Richard Blanco? They're all part of the canon – major poets with established reputations.  But who are the boundary-breaking poets we should be reading next?  Stephen Burt is the person to ask – the young Harvard professor who's considered the leading poetry critic of a new generation and who's been making a conscious effort to introduce new and different voices to the canon.
Shows
Writing poems The Poem is You: New Voices in American Poetry