Ben Lerner

Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American poet, novelist, and critic. Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School. At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)". Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.

Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011. It was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among other periodicals. It won the Believer Book Award. and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for "first fiction" and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.

In 2008 he began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British academic publication. Lerner has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.

Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.

Recognition
He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets,  The Lichtenberg Figures. In 2004, Library Journal named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry. The Lichtenberg Figures appeared in a German translation in 2010, for which it received the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie" in 2011, making Lerner the first American to receive this honor. Other awards won by Lerner include:

Awards

 * 2003 Hayden Carruth Award
 * 2003-2004 Fulbright Fellowship
 * Finalist, 2006 National Book Award for Angle of Yaw.
 * Finalist, 2006 Northern California Book Awards for Angle of Yaw
 * 2010-2011 Howard Foundation Fellow
 * 2011 Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie
 * Finalist for the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Award for first fiction
 * Finalist for the 2012 Young Lions Prize, given by the New York Public Library
 * Winner of the 2012 The Believer book award
 * Finalist for the 2012 William Saroyan Prize for International Writing

Poetry

 * The Lichtenberg Figures, poetry (Port Townsend, Copper Canyon Press, 2004).
 * Angle of Yaw, poetry (Port Townsend, Copper Canyon Press, 2006).
 * Mean Free Path, poetry (Port Townsend, Copper Canyon Press, 2010).

Novels

 * Leaving the Atocha Station, Coffee House Press, 2011.

Selected web publications

 * Poetry
 * Poem The Lost Browning Tape from SOFT TARGETS v.2.1
 * Four poems from Angle of Yaw in Boston Review
 * Three poems from Angle of Yaw in Jacket Magazine.
 * An excerpt from The Lichtenberg Figures in Slope.
 * Poems in Fascicle.
 * Lerner's poem Didactic Elegy
 * A poem by Lerner in The Nation
 * Lerner's series "Doppler Elegies" in Jacket
 * Other
 * Peter Cole interviews Ben Lerner in Bomb see Wikipedia article on Peter Cole for another perspective
 * Book Patrol: Ben Lerner on W.S. Merwin
 * Poet’s Sampler: Lynn Xu Lerner provides an introductory note to a group of poems by Lynn Xu published in Boston Review's May/June 2010 issue
 * Critical pieces, retrospectives, etc.
 * Apples of Discourse on Rosmarie Waldrop in Jacket upon the publication of Waldrop's Curves to the Apple, which gathers her trilogy of prose poems
 * "Cezanne refused to dissolve the object into atmospheric effects..." on poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge in Rain Taxi, upon the publication of her book I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems
 * Of Accumulation: The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley on Robert Creeley in boundary 2
 * The Future Continuous: Ashbery's Lyric Mediacy on John Ashbery in boundary 2
 * “Selfish Enchantments”: Barbara Guest and the Nature of Arrangement This essay on U.S. poet Barbara Guest first appeared in New American Writing, number 27
 * An essay on the painter Simon Hantaï
 * An essay on Abstract Expressionism
 * An essay on the portable murals of Diego Rivera in Art in America

Reviews

 * The Lichtenberg Figures
 * Poetry Microreviews appeared in the Boston Review September/October 2005 online edition.
 * The Lichtenberg Figures, reviewed by Cindra Halm in Rain Taxi.
 * A Review of Ben Lerner's The Lichtenberg Figures by Brian Leary in 42opus
 * Sustained elegy this review by Cyrus Console appeared online October 2005 in Jacket Magazine, Number 28.


 * Angle of Yaw
 * Fault Lines: Ben Lerner's Angle of Yaw and Sarah Manguso's Siste Viator appeared in the Boston Review September/October 2007 online edition.
 * A review of Angle of Yaw at Coldfront Magazine.
 * A review of Lerner's work in The Pittsburgh City Paper focuses primarily on Angle Of Yaw
 * An essay on Lerner's "Didactic Elegy" in Jacket


 * Mean Free Path
 * An essay on Mean Free Path in The New Republic
 * The Art of Losing, Re-mastered: an essay on Ben Lerner's "Mean Free Path" by David Gorin in Jacket Magazine, Number 40.
 * A review of Mean Free Path in The Critical Flame
 * A piece on Mean Free Path and six other contemporary poets at The Atlantic
 * "Somewhere in this Book I Broke" -- a review of Mean Free Path
 * A dialogue with Aaron Kunin about Mean Free Path in Jacket Magazine
 * Karla Kelsey reviews Mean Free Path at the Constant Critic
 * Ben Lerner's "Mean Free Path" reviewed by Evan Hansen at the website The The Poetry, April 4, 2010
 * "Starred Review" in Publishers Weekly
 * Mean Free Path reviewed in Library Journal
 * Mean Free Path reviewed in Boston Review
 * 'Giant Resonant Waves', Oxonian Review: review of Mean Free Path


 * Leaving The Atocha Station
 * An essay comparing Lerner and Hemingway in The New York Times
 * A review by James Wood in The New Yorker
 * A review by Lorin Stein in The New York Review of Books
 * A review in The Wall Street Journal
 * A review in N+1
 * Leaving the Atocha Station reviewed in the Forward
 * Bookforum reviews Leaving the Atocha Station
 * A review by David Shields in the Los Angeles Review of Books
 * A review by John Yau in Hyperallergic
 * a review at Electric Literature
 * A review at Open Letters
 * Other
 * Die wollen doch nur spielen An essay by Matthias Göritz, principally focusing in on the German translation of The Lichtenberg Figures; appears online in SPRITZ (German)
 * An essay treating Lerner in Postmodern Culture.