Tenney Nathanson

Tenney Nathanson's books of poetry include Erased Art from Chax Press, Home on the Range (The Night Sky with Stars in My Mouth) from O Books and, most recently, Ghost Snow Falls through the Void (Globalization) from Chax. His critical publications include a study of Walt Whitman, Whitman's Presence, from New York University Press. Nathanson is Professor of English at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he teaches American poetry and directs the PhD program in Literature. In 1996 he helped found the Tucson poetry and arts collective POG, which presents readings, workshops, and artist's talks. In 2008 he co-founded Desert Rain Zen in Tucson, part of the Pacific Zen School and the Open Source, an innovative tradition which emphasizes both individual and group koan work; he's currently Desert Rain's resident teacher and an Open Source Sensei. Current poetry projects include "Ghost Snow 2 (Unwinding)," "Normal Distribution," and "The Waste Land by Tenney Nathanson." Chax Press will publish a collection of Nathanson's critical essays on contemporary American poetry in 2017 or 2018. Most recent critical publication: "'The Birds Swim through the Air at Top Speed': Kinetic Identification in Keats, Whitman, Stevens, and Dickinson (Notes toward a Poetics)" in the Winter 2016 issue of Critical Inquiry.