John Shoptaw
Continuing LecturerWheeler Hall, room 476
M 12-2, T 11-12 & by appt
jshoptaw@berkeley.edu
Professional Statement
If you're not a green poet, whatever other kind of poet you are, you're not paying attention.
"Near-Earth Object" (poem) (2019): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/148679/near-earth-object
with commentary: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/148856/how-far-weve-come
"Why Ecopoetry?" (2016) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/70299/why-ecopoetry
Specialties
Books
| Title | Fields | |
|---|---|---|
|
Times Beach “Times Beach is, like most interesting American books, an original. It’s about a place, the watershed of the Mississippi River, and it is an ecopoetics. Best, perhaps, to think of it as a hybrid of Hart Crane, the depression photographs of Dorothea Lange, and a nineteenth-century lantern show—they called them ‘panoramas’—of the human and environmental history of our mightiest river system. It com.... | |
|
On the Outside Looking Out: John Ashbery's Poetry A study of Ashbery's books of poems from Some Trees through Flow Chart..... |
Selected Publications and Papers Delivered
"Least Concern" (poem) Poetry (September 2016) <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/90296>
"Why Ecopoetry" (essay) Poetry (January 2016) <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/>
Times Beach (book of poems) (Notre Dame UP 2015)
"Blues Haiku" (poem) The New Yorker (2011)
"Dickinson's Civil War Poetics" The Emily Dickinson Journal (2011)
Our American Cousin (Eric Sawyer opera with my libretto) BMOP Sound CD (2008)
"Listening to Dickinson" Representations 86 (Spring 2004)
"Lyric Cryptography" Poetics Today 21 (2000)
Current Research
Environmental poetry and poetics, ecopoetic criticism and theory.
Emily Dickinson's environmental poetics.
A new book of poems.
Recent English Courses Taught
Spring, 2019
| Course & Section | Course Name | Course Areas |
| 143B/2 | Verse |
Creative Writing Workshops |
| 190/10 | Research Seminar: Emily Dickinson |
American Literature Poetry Research Seminars |
Spring, 2018
| Course & Section | Course Name | Course Areas |
| 143B/2 | Verse |
Creative Writing Workshops |
| 166/5 | Special Topics: Emily Dickinson |
American Literature Poetry Special Topics |
Fall, 2017
| Course & Section | Course Name | Course Areas |
| 143B/1 | Verse |
Creative Writing Workshops |
Spring, 2017
| Course & Section | Course Name | Course Areas |
| 143B/1 | Verse |
Creative Writing Workshops |
University of California, Berkeley
English Department
322 Wheeler Hall,
Berkeley, CA 94720-1030
general phone: 510-642-3467
