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Andrew Osborn, Ph.D.

Andrew Osborn received his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and his Ph.D. from UT-Austin. His research interests include poetic difficulty, formalism, and lyric theory. 

Education

  • A.B., Harvard University
  • M.F.A., University of Iowa - Writers' Workshop
  • Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Recent Courses

  • Literary Tradition I (Iliad, Odyssey; Aeneid; Beowulf; Gawain)]
  • Literary Tradition II (Divine Comedy; Paradise Lost; Lyric )
  • Literary Tradition III (Fifth-century Athenian, Medieval, and Elizabethan drama)
  • Literary Tradition IV (Mansfield Park; Moby-Dick; Crime & Punishment; Go Down, Moses; short fiction)
  • Literary Study I: Lyric ("Junior Poet")
  • Literary Study II: Prose Fiction
  • Twentieth-Century Literature
  • Twentieth-Century Poetry by the Book
  • Creative Writing: Poetry
  • Creative Writing: Narrative Fiction
  • Lyric Theory
  • Modern Irish Poetry
  • Marilynne Robinson:  Novels & Essays of American Mindfulness
  • American Literature

Research Interests

  • Lyric Poetry and Theory
  • Literary Difficulty
  • Modernism and Postmodernism
  • Pragmatism and Ordinary Language Philosophy
  • The Sublime
  • Formalism
  • Creative Writing (Poetry)

Selected Publications

  • “Stevens’s Soil: Intelligence, Conceptual Affordances, and the Genius Beyond.” Special issue: “Harmonium at 100.” The Wallace Stevens Journal, vol. 47, no. 2, Fall 2023, pp. 164-194, muse.jhu.edu/article/910916.
  • “John Keats (1795-1821 ce) & Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822 ce) at the Keats-Shelley House and the Cimitero Acattolico.” People and Places of the Roman Past: The Educated Traveler’s Guide. Ed. Peter Hatlie. Amsterdam: Arc Humanities. 2018. 28-41.
  • “Likings, Likenings, and the Push of Reading.”  Philological Review 40.2 (2014): 37-64.
  • “Difficulty.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 4th Ed. Eds. Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2012. 364-66.
  • “Like Animals, Like Love.” Rev. of The Lions, by Peter Campion, Never-Ending Birds, by David Baker, and Horse and Rider, by Melissa Range. Spoon River Poetry Review 35.2 (2010): 94-123.
  • “Habits of Thought, Inhabitings of Possibility: An Interview with John Koethe.” Southwest Review 92.1 (2007): 52-81. 
  • “‘A Little Hard to See’: Wittgenstein, Stevens, and the Uses of Unclarity.” Wallace Stevens Journal 28.1 (2004): 59-80.
  • “August Kleinzahler: Interview.” Verse 17.2-3/18.1 (2001): 165-90. Rpt. in The Verse Book of Interviews: 27 Poets on Language, Craft & Culture. Amherst, Mass.: Verse, 2005. 30-55.
  • Admit Impediment:  The Use of Difficulty in Twentieth-Century American Poetry.  Diss. University of Texas at Austin, 2001. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001. AAT 3008413.
  • “Skirmishes on the Border: The Evolution and Function of Paul Muldoon’s Fuzzy Rhyme.”Contemporary Literature 41.2 (2000): 323-58. Rpt. in Multiformalisms: Postmodern Poetics of Form. Ed. Annie Finch and Susan M. Schultz (Textos, 2008): 259-303

Poetry

  • Plato’s Aviary. Aldrich, 2003.
  • Poems published in American Letters & Commentary, Bat City Review, Colorado Review, Columbia, Denver Quarterly, Erato, Fence, Graham House Review, Literary Imagination, Notre Dame Review, Ramify, Southwest Review (Morton Marr Poetry Prize for 2008), and Spoon River Poetry Review. Also: online through the Blanton Poetry Project and Verse Daily
 

Presentations

  • “Graceful Errors, Lyric Yields.” Keynote Address. Wyoming Catholic College. Lander, WY. Dec. 2017.
  • “Full Fadom.” Convocation Address. U of Dallas, Church of the Incarnation. May 2016.
  • “Likings, Likenings, and the Push of Reading.” Keynote Address. Arkansas Philological Association Meeting. Little Rock, AR. Oct. 2014.

Reviews

  • Rev. of Fast, by Jorie Graham. Chicago Review 62.1/2/3 (2019): 358-64. [Recommended by Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog]
  • Rev. of I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems 1960-2014, by Bill Knott. Chicago Review 60.4/61.1 (2017): 209-18. [Recommended by Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog]  
  • Rev. of Regions of Unlikeness: Explaining Contemporary Poetry, by Thomas Gardner, and Poetic Culture: Contemporary American Poetry Between Community and Institution, by Christopher Beach. Boston Review 26.1 (2001): 50-51.
  • Rev. of Swarm, by Jorie Graham. Boston Review 25.1 (2000): 56-58. 
  • “Street-Smart Swagger and Tendresse.” Rev. of Green Sees Things in Waves, by August Kleinzahler. Notre Dame Review 10 (2000):  153-58.
  • “Poirier’s Latest Push.” Rev. of Trying It Out in America: Literary and Other Performances, by Richard Poirier. Iowa Review 30.1 (2000): 171-77.
  • Rev. of My Way: Speeches and Poems, by Charles Bernstein. Chicago Review 45.3/4 (1999): 173-77. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism 142.
  • Rev. of On a Stair, by Ann Lauterbach. Boston Review 23.6 (1998-99): 55-57.