About David Kirby
Mr. Kirby grew up on a farm in southern Louisiana. He received a BA from Louisiana State University and is the author or co-author of twenty-nine books, including the poetry collections The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems, The Ha-Ha, The House of Blue Light, and The Travelling Library, in addition to the essay collection Ultra-Talk: Johnny Cash, The Mafia, Shakespeare, Drum Music, St. Teresa Of Avila, and 17 Other Colossal Topics Of Conversation. His many awards include the Guy Owen Prize, the James Dickey Prize, the Brittingham Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Kirby’s latest book, Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Continuum, 2009), has been hailed by the Times Literary Supplement of London as a “hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense." Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University, where he has taught since 1969.
BOOKS OF POETRY
The Temple Gate Called Beautiful (Alice James Books, 2008)
The House on Boulevard St: New and Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 2007)
I Think I’m Going to Call my Wife Paraguay: New and Selected Poems (Orchises Press, 2004)
The Ha-Ha (Louisiana State University Press, 2003)
The Travelling Library: 3 Poems (Orchises Press, 2001)
The House of Blue Light (Louisiana State University Press, 2000)
My Twentieth Century: Poems (Orchises Press, 1998)
Big-Leg Music (Orchard Press, 1995)
Saving the Young Men of Vienna (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987)
Sarah Bernhart’s Leg: Poems (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1983)
