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Stephen Burt

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United States

Website

http://www.closecallswithnonsense.com/

Genre

Poetry

Member Since

February 2008

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I write books about poetry, essays on other people’s poems, books of my own poems, and shorter pieces about poems, poets, poetry, comics, science-fiction writers, political controversies, obscure pop groups, and the WNBA.

My published books are: Close Calls With Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (Graywolf, Spring 2009), The Forms of Youth: Adolescence and 20th Century Poetry (Columbia University Press, 2007), Parallel Play: Poems (Graywolf, 2006), Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden (editor with Hannah Brooks-Motl, Columbia University Press, 2005), Randall Jarrell and His Age (Columbia University Press, 2002), and Popular Music: Poems (Center for Literary Publishing, 1999).

I am an Associate Professor of English at Harvard University. Prior to joining ...more

116 posts
Stephen Burt's Blog

University of Chicago

I’ll be at the University of Chicago for two events Tuesday Jan. 19 and Wednesday Jan. 20 2016: on Tuesday I’ll be reading poetry and talking about my (very nonscholarly) versions of Callimachus at 7pm, and on Wednesday I’ll be giving a critical talk in the History and Forms of Lyric series, at 4:30pm. The talk is called “How to Make an Anthology, or the Literary History of the Present.” If you li

Combine Editions
Stephen Burt’s books

Average rating: 4.03 · 881 ratings · 119 reviews · 36 distinct works • Similar authors

	Advice from the Lights 3.55 avg rating — 148 ratings — published 2017	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them 3.88 avg rating — 115 ratings — published 2016 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Close Calls With Nonsense: Reading New Poetry 4.07 avg rating — 97 ratings — published 2009 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Belmont 3.64 avg rating — 89 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Art of the Sonnet by Stephen Burt (Goodreads Author), David Mikics (Goodreads Author) 4.03 avg rating — 71 ratings — published 2010 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Parallel Play 3.90 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Popular Music 3.96 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1999 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Randall Jarrell and His Age 4.43 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2002 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Forms of Youth: Twentieth-Century Poetry and Adolescence 4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2007 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Weather Observer's Handbook 4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Stephen Burt…

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The Cosmopolitan

by Donna Stonecipher

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Aug 15, 2008 07:24AM

Stephen is currently reading

Hardscrabble: Poems (The VQR Poetry)

by Kevin McFadden

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Jul 05, 2008 05:12AM

Quotes by Stephen Burt (?)

“One chance, One life. Make it or screw it up, it's your choice. Don't wait to long or your time will be up.”
― Stephen Burt

4 likes

“Color Theory"

How yellow the sky how little the understanding

Intangible the things we know for sure

Dusty silica clouds over Europe the very same day

We brought our baby home His second Too yellow

For comfort Too sleepy Just sleepy enough

For us to sleep ourselves That was last night

Today the clouds shift Outside shifts Rain and shadows

A mezzotint glow Then no glow Heart or soul

Exactly seven pounds of civilization

Hematochrome and skin and bilirubin

Yawns blinks and can’t make up his made-up mind

The atmosphere can’t keep its own eyes open

We can’t keep our own eyes closed”
― Stephen Burt

2 likes

“Stephen Burt is Professor of English at Harvard.

"Butterfly with Parachute"
Stephen Burt

A real one wouldn’t need one,
but the one Nathan draws surely does:
four oblongs the size and color of popsicles,
green apple, toasted coconut and grape,
flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts,
in a frame of Scotch tape.
Alive, it could stay off the floor
for a few unaerodynamic minutes;
thrown as a paper airplane, for a few more.
Very sensibly, therefore,
our son gave it something, not to keep it apart
from the ground forever, but rather to make safe its descent.
When we ask that imagination discover the limits
of the real
world only slowly,
maybe this is what we meant.”
― Stephen Burt

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See all Stephen Burt's quotes »