David Yezzi

David Yezzi in 2011. Photo by Rakesprogress. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

David Dalton Yezzi (born 1966) is an American poet and actor, and executive editor of The New Criterion.

Life

Yezzi was born in Albany, New York.

He earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Carnegie Mellon University and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.

In 1992, Herbert Leibowitz gave Yezzi his earliest editing job at Parnassus: Poetry in Review. Since then, he has held editing positions at The New York Observer and The New Criterion, returning to Parnassus as associate editor in 2000, and to The New Criterion as poetry editor in 2004.

In October 2009, he was poet in residence at West Chester University, in West Chester, PA.

Before becoming executive editor at The New Criterion, he directed the 92nd Street Y's Unterberg Poetry Center, a reading series and writing program founded in 1939. Yezzi produced the weekly reading series at which poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction authors share and discuss their work. In addition, he oversaw the center's youth outreach initiative, adult literacy project, writing program and he expanded the number of poetic dramas and dramatic readings at the 92nd Street Y Poets' Theatre, which presents dramatic readings of plays written by poets.

Prior to becoming director of the poetry center in 2001, Mr. Yezzi was chief administrator of The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University.

His poems have been published in literary journals including The Atlantic, Poetry, The Yale Review, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Poetry Daily and The New Criterion. His literary essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, New York Sun, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Times Literary Supplement, Poetry and elsewhere.

The New Criterion

Yezzi was formerly poetry editor of The New Criterion and still selects the poems for it. "It is important to the magazine to publish strong poems," he said in a 2006 interview. "We publish three to five pages of poetry in every issue," in addition to a special feature on poetry in April.

"[T]here is a way in which most poetry disqualifies itself within a few lines," Yezzi said. "I would like to say that there are more good poems coming into our offices than we can use, but the truth is that we're always diligently on the lookout for good work. We sometimes solicit work from poets we admire so that we can fill the thirty to fifty pages a year. There's just not that much good verse out there."

Asked what living poets he admires, Yezzi mentioned Geoffrey Hill, Richard Wilbur, A.E. Stallings, David Barber, and Adam Kirsch. He also mentioned the recently deceased Anthony Hecht and Donald Justice.

Drama

Yezzi was actor and co-founder of the San Francisco theater company, Thick Description, and has performed in works by Shakespeare, Shaw, Brecht, Goethe, Williams and others in the United States and Europe. In 2000, he performed with the company in Bertolt Brecht's The Visions of Simone Machard.

In 2006, Yezzi was producer for the stage adaptation of Glyn Maxwell's book of poetry, The Sugar Mile.

In June 2007, Verse Theater Manhattan produced a workshop reading of his verse drama On the Rocks, directed by Jim Milton, at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.

In March 2010, Verse Theater Manhattan presented Yezzi's evening of verse monologues, Dirty Dan & Other Travesties, at the Bowery Poetry Club, with music by Chris Lee, and performances by Yezzi, Lee, Bruce Faulk, Tony Torn, Sayra Player, and Max Woertendyke.

Writing

Of his collection Azores, Adam Kirsch wrote in The New York Sun on April 23, 2008: "Like Hart Crane's Voyages, Azores is suffused with the eroticism of the sea. Unlike Crane, Mr. Yezzi concludes by recognizing that 'we are not suited to live long at sea,' that our 'lust for water' is countered by a 'fidelity to land.' The sophistication of Mr. Yezzi's language perfectly suits the sophistication of his understanding, and some of the poems in Azores — 'Very Like a Whale,' 'Dog's Life,' the brilliant and unexpected dramatic monologue 'The Ghost-Seer' — display a mastery reminiscent of Philip Larkin and Donald Justice, which no poet of Mr. Yezzi's generation can match. Anyone who enjoys those great civilized poets should read this one."

Recognition

While in college, Yezzi won The Academy of American Poets College Prize and the Thomas Auclair Award for acting from Carnegie Mellon. In graduate school, he received the David Craig Austin Memorial Award from Columbia University (judged by Jorie Graham).

In 1998, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University (1998–2000).

Yezzi's poem "The Call" appeared in The Best American Poetry 2006. The poem had originally appeared in New England Review

In December 2008, Azores was chosen as a Slate magazine "Best Book of 2008."

Publications

Poetry

• Midwinter Spring (chapbook). West Chester, PA: Aralia Press, 2002.
• Sad Is Eros (chapbook). West Chester, PA: Aralia Press, 2003.
• The Hidden Model. Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly, 2003. ISBN 0-8101-5144-8; ISBN 978-0-8101-5144-4
• Azores: Poems. Athens, OH: Swallow Press / Ohio University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8040-1112-9 ISBN 978-0-8040-1113-6
• A Fletching of Hackles: Fresh verse by Ernest Hilbert and David Yezzi (chapbook). Philadelphia: Nemean Lion Press, 2009.
• Such Root Satisfaction, 3 X 5 (3 poems by Yezzi, 5 by Ernest Hilbert) (chapbook). Philadelphia: Nemean Lion Press, 2010.
• Tomorrow & Tomorrow (chapbook; with afterword by Denis Donoghue). Exot Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9844249-7-9 x
• Two Ranges [Vertical] (with Ernest Hilbert; chapbook). Philadephia: Nemean Lion Press, 2013.
• Birds of the Air. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013. w

Edited

• Zoo Anthology of Younger Poets. Omaha, NE: Zoo Press, 2004.
• Swallow Anthology of New American Poets. Athens, OH: Swallow Press / Ohio University Press, 2009. ISBN 0-8040-1121-4 ISBN 978-0-8040-1121-1

Mother Carey's Hen read by David Yezzi

"Lazy" By David Yezzi

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Music

• His libretto for a new chamber opera by composer David Conte, Firebird Motel, premiered in 2003. It was published by E.C. Schirmer, and released on CD by Arsis.
• His libretto for a new opera by Cyril Deaconoff, The Last Tycoon (based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel), received a workshop performance at West Bay Opera in the summer of 2011.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• "False Fire"
• "Acceptance Speech"
• "Chinese New Year"
• "Vigil"
• David Yezzi at the Poetry Foundation

Prose

• "An Expert on Human Failings", brief article on Anthony Hecht in The New York Times Book Review
• "Bacon's Theater of the Absurd", on the paintings of Francis Bacon, in The New Criterion
• "The Amis Country" on the poetry of Kingsley Amis, in The New Criterion

Audio / video

• David Yezzi at YouTube
• Reading at the 2006 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Books

• David Yezzi at Amazon.com

About

• Biographical sketch of Yezzi at the 92nd Street Y Web site, also available on a Google cache
• Cortland Review interview with Ernest Hilbert
• Slate "Best Books of 2008", citation by Adam Kirsch for Azores]
• Stephen Burt review of The Hidden Model
• Adam Kirsch review of The Hidden Model
• Ben Finane review of Firebird Motel
• Jay Batzner review of Firebird Motel