David Shapiro (poet)

For others with this name, see David Shapiro (disambiguation).

David Shapiro
Born	(1947-01-02) January 2, 1947
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University (BA, PhD) University of Cambridge (MA)

David Shapiro (born January 2, 1947) is an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He has written some twenty volumes of poetry, literary, and art criticism. He was first published at the age of thirteen, and his first book was published when he was eighteen.

Education and teaching

Václav Havel, Shirley Temple Black, David Shapiro and John Hejduk,
Prague, 3 September 1991

Memorial plaque in Prague with the Shapiro's poem "The Funeral of Jan Palach"

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Shapiro grew up in Newark and attended Weequahic High School before matriculating at the age of 17½ at Columbia University, from which he holds a B.A. (1968) and a Ph.D. (1973) in English. Already a musician of professional competence as a youth, from 1963 he was a violinist with the New Jersey Symphony and the American Symphony, among others. Between 1968 and 1970, he studied at the University of Cambridge on a Kellett Fellowship, from which he holds an M.A. with honors. Having previously taught at Columbia (in the Department of English and Comparative Literature), Princeton University, and Brooklyn College, Shapiro teaches poetry and literature at Cooper Union and is currently the William Paterson professor of art history at William Paterson University.

He achieved brief notoriety during the 1968 student uprising at Columbia, when he was photographed sitting behind the desk of President Grayson L. Kirk wearing dark glasses and smoking a cigar; Shapiro later described the cigar as "horrible".

Works

Shapiro's writing includes a monograph on John Ashbery, a book on Jim Dine’s paintings, a book on Piet Mondrian’s flower studies, and a book on Jasper Johns’ drawings. He has translated Rafael Alberti’s poems on Pablo Picasso, and the writings of the Sonia and Robert Delaunay.

His sonnets on the death of Socrates are the basis for Unwritten, a song cycle by Mohammed Fairouz.

List of works

• January: A Book of Poems–Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965
• Poems From Deal–E P Dutton, 1969
• An Anthology of New York Poets (co-editor)–Random House, 1970
• A Man Holding an Acoustic Panel–E P Dutton, 1971 (National Book Award Nominee)
• The Page Turner–Liveright, 1973
• Lateness: A Book of Poems–Overlook/Viking, 1977
• Introduction to John Ashbery’s Poetry–Columbia University Press, 1979
• The Writings of Sonia and Robert Delaunay (co-translator)–Viking, 1979
• Jim Dine–Abrams, 1981; Alecta Press (German edition and translation)
• Lateness (Watercolors by Lucio Pozzi)–Generations Press, Paris, 1981
• To An Idea–Overlook/Viking, 1984
• Jasper Johns – Abrams, 1984
• The Body's Words on JM Haessle, 1988
• House (Blown Apart): A Book of Poems–Overlook/Viking, 1988
• Mondrian: Flowers–Abrams, 1991
• The Selected Poems of Jacques Dupin (co-translator)–Wake Forest, 1992
• The Eight Names of Picasso (co-translator)–Gas Station Editions, 1992
• After A Lost Original (etching by Terry Winters)–Solo Press, 1992
• The Green Lake is Awake: The Selected Poems of Joseph Ceravolo (co-editor)–Coffee House Press, 1994
• After A Lost Original–Overlook Press, 1994
• Inventory: New & Selected Poems (editor) by Frank Lima-Hard Press, 1997
• Body of Prayer (Shapiro, Michal Govrin, Derrida)–Cooper Union Press, 2001
• A Burning Interior–Overlook Press, 2002
• Rabbit Duck (Collaborative with Richard Hell) – Repair, 2005
• New and Selected Poems (1965–2006)– Overlook Press, 2007
• In Memory of an Angel -City Lights Publishers, 2017. ISBN 9780872867130
• Человек без книги (A Man Without a Book; Selected poems translated into Russian by Gali-Dana Zinger) - Literature without borders (Latvia), 2017. ISBN 9789934856891

Personal life

Shapiro lives in Riverdale, The Bronx, New York City, with his wife and son.

Sources

• The Poetry of David Shapiro

Further reading

• Thomas Fink, The Poetry of David Shapiro, Farleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison & Teaneck, NJ, 1993; ISBN 0-8386-3495-8
• Thomas Fink & Joseph Lease, Burning Interiors: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics, Farleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison & Teaneck, NJ, 2007; ISBN 978-0-8386-4155-2. Includes essays by Paul Hoover, Joanna Fuhrman, Stephen Paul Miller, Denise Duhamel, Noah Eli Gordon, Ron Silliman, Tim Peterson, Timothy Liu, more.
• New York Quarterly, Issue 65, has an extensive interview with David Shapiro.

External links

• In the Presence of Genius: Rodger Kamenetz on New and Selected Poems review which appeared in the Jewish Daily Forward, July 18, 2007
• Annotated Torso of an Interview David Shapiro in conversation with Sam Lohmann, March 2009

Jacket magazine features

• Jacket Magazine, issue 23 this issue includes a David Shapiro Feature, with numerous links to essays, reviews, poems (6 poems from A Burning Interior), and an interview of Shapiro conducted by John Tranter
• The Terror of the Poet David Shapiro in conversation with Kent Johnson, an interview by email conducted in 2009
• A Conversation with Kenneth Koch Shapiro's 1969 interview with the late Kenneth Koch.