David Kirby

Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor

WMS 420

Creative writing, poetry, 19th- and 20th-century U.S. literature, non-fiction

DAVID KIRBY is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. He has earned many honors for his work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as five university teaching awards. His latest books are The Winter Dance Party, Poems 1983-2023 and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them. Kirby is also the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement described as “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense” and which was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of that year. Entertainment Weekly has called Kirby’s poetry one of “5 Reasons to Live.” Kirby has also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Florida Humanities, which called him "a literary treasure of our state."

BOOKS

The Beautiful Theremin Player: Gonzo Essays on Books, Music, Tattoos, Celebrity Worship, and Everything Else (Texas Review Press, forthcoming in 2028).
The Winter Dance Party, Poems 1983-2023 (Louisiana State University Press, 2024).
The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them (Flip Learning, 2021).
Help Me, Information (Louisiana State University Press, 2021).
The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them (Flip Learning, 2021).
More Than This (Louisiana State University Press, 2019).
Get Up, Please, (Louisiana State University Press, 2016).
A Wilderness of Monkeys, (Hanging Loose Press, 2014).
The Biscuit Joint, (Louisiana State University Press, 2013).
Talking about Movies with Jesus, (Louisiana State University Press, 2011).
Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll, (Continuum, 2009).
The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems, (Louisiana State University Press, 2007).
The Ha-Ha, poetry, (Louisiana State University Press, 2003).
What is a Book? (University of Georgia Press, 2002).
The Traveling Library (Orchises, 2001).
The House of Blue Light, poetry, (Louisiana State University Press, 2000).
My Twentieth Century, poetry, (Orchises, 1999).
Big Leg Music, poetry, (Orchises, 1995).
Herman Melville, Crossroad/Continuum, 1993.
Mark Strand and the Poet's Place in Contemporary Culture, U of Missouri Press, 1990.
Saving the Young Men of Vienna (poetry), U of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Writing Poetry, The Writer, Inc., 1989.