Lewis Turco And His Work Literary Memoirs

Lewis Turco, Professor Emeritus of English Writing Arts, is perhaps the most widely respected poet-scholar in the United States. He took his B.A. from the University of Connecticut in 1959 and his M.A. from the University of Iowa in 1962. In 2000 he received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Ashland University. Founding Director of the Cleveland University Poetry Center (1962) and the Program in Writing Arts at the State University of New York at Oswego (1968) before his retirement in 1996, he was chosen to write the major essay on "Poetry" -- as well as a dozen other entries -- for the Encylopedia of American Literature, and he was himself included in it as a biographee. His poems, essays, stories and plays have appeared in most of hte major literary periodicals over the past half-century, and in over one hundred books and anthologies. Lewis Turco's classic The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics has been called "the poet's Bible" since its original publication in 1968, through three editions and many printings. A companion volume, The Book of Literary Terms, The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism and Scholarship, received a Choice award as an "Outstanding Academic Book" for the year 2000. The Book of Dialogue appeared in 2004. Among the many honors bestowed upon him, Professor Turco received the John Ciardi Award for lifetime acheivement in poetry in 1999. This festschrift, a collection of essays and tributes, was published to honor the poet on the occasion of his 70th birthday. (May 2, 2004)Swerdfeger, Steven E. is the author of 'Lewis Turco And His Work Literary Memoirs', published 2004 under ISBN 9780965183598 and ISBN 0965183599.