Summary
Ann Keniston is a professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, with a specialty in American poetry.
She is the author of three monographs, Economies of Scale: Financialization and Contemporary North American Poetry (Palgrave, 2023), Ghostly Figures: Memory and Belatedness in Postwar American Poetry (Iowa, 2015), the 2016 winner of the Warren-Brooks Award, and Overheard Voices: Address and Subjectivity in Postmodern American Poetry (Routledge, 2006). She has also published two poetry collections, Somatic (Terrapin, 2020) and The Caution of Human Gestures (David Robert Books, 2005), the chapbook November Wasps: Elegies (Finishing Line, 2013), as well as poems and essays in many journals, including, recently, Gettysburg Review, Fourth Genre, and Five Points.
Keniston has also co-edited four volumes: Ethics after Postmodernism: A Critical Reader (McFarland, 2020, with Lee Olsen and Brendan Johnston), The News from Poems: Essays on the 21st-century American Poetry of Engagement (Michigan, Fall 2016, with Jeffrey Gray), The New American Poetry of Engagement: A 21st Century Anthology (McFarland, 2012, with Jeffrey Gray), and Literature after 9/11 (Routledge, 2008, with Jeanne Follansbee Quinn).
Twice a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, she has also received several artist's grants from the Nevada Arts Council. She recently has completed a new collection of poems, entitled “Works on Paper,” and is at work a collection of essays tentatively entitled “Synecdochic.”
Research interests
- History and theory of poetry
- 20th and 21st century poetry
- Contemporary American literature
- Gender in literature and theory
- Lyric theory
- Psychoanalysis and literature
- Creative writing (poetry)
- Literature and public engagement
- Ethics
Courses taught
- Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop
- American Literature and Culture
- American Poetry
- American Poetry 1865-1945
- American Poetry 1945-Present
- American Women Poets (graduate seminar)
- Contemporary American Literature
- Contemporary American Poetry (graduate seminar)
- Core Humanities: American Experience and Constitutional Change (honors)
- Craft of Poetry (graduate seminar)
- Ethics and/as Engagement in 21st-century American Literature (graduate seminar)
- Expository Writing: Style and Argument
- Haunting and Memory in Contemporary American Literature (graduate seminar)
- Honors Composition
- Nonhuman, Posthuman, Inhuman (graduate seminar)
- Modern and Contemporary American Poetry (graduate seminar)
- Modern British and American Poetry
- Postmodern American Literature (graduate seminar)
- Space and Place in Recent British and American Fiction (graduate seminar)
- Women in Literature
- Writing about Literature
Publications
Single-authored books
- Ghostly Figures: Memory and Belatedness in Postwar American Poetry. Contemporary North American Poetry Series. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2015. Recipient of Robert Penn Warren - Cleanth Brooks Award (2016).
- November Wasps: Elegies. Poetry chapbook. Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line, 2013.
- Overheard Voices: Subjectivity and Address in Postmodern American Poetry. New York: Routledge Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory Series, 2006. Paper 2015.
- The Caution of Human Gestures: Poems. Cincinnati: David Robert Books, 2005.
Edited collections
- The News from Poems: New Essays on 21st-century American Engaged Poetry. Co-edited essay collection (with Jeffrey Gray), including 12 essays plus a cowritten introduction. Ann Arbor, MI: U. of Michigan P, 2016. (in press)
- The New American Poetry of Engagement: A 21st-Century Anthology. Anthology co-edited with Jeffrey Gray. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.
- Literature after 9/11. Essay collection co-edited with Jeanne Follansbee Quinn. New York: Routledge, 2008. Paper 2010.
Education
- Ph.D., English Literature, Boston University, 2002
- M.A., English with a concentration in creative writing, New York University, 1991
- B.A. with general honors, English, University of Chicago, 1983