Shawn Sturgeon - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I'm a poet, with one published collection and another on the way. I translate Spanish language/ German poetry, and I write fiction. I've taught creative writing and literature at the University of Cincinnati, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Emory University, Adelphi University. I was a Taft Fellow, a Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry at Emory University, and a Tennessee Williams Fellow at the Sewanee Writer's Conference. I've been a radio announcer/DJ, an infantry officer, an editor, an observer of cafe society. A wanderer most of my adult life, I've lived in Dallas, Cincinnati, Mazatlan, Mexico, Atlanta, and until recently, New York City. My first book of poetry was a finalist for the Paris Review Prize, the Independent Publishers Book Awards and a semi-finalist for the Walt Whitman Prize. "Fables for Beasts," about trickster Coyote, was a finalist for the Wick Chapbook Award. You can order my first book Either/Ur at Amazon: ISBN 1880216566. My newest collection of poems is titled "Forgive Me, Lips." I am left-handed and I have green eyes. For talent work, I can be reached through my agent, John, at Stanley Kaplan Talent in New York City.

Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Blue skies

My Interests

interesting people who say interesting things.

I'd like to meet:

My doppelganger.

Music:

Ray Charles, Bach, Mose Allison, Billy Holliday, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Scriabin's "poemes," Vivaldi's mandolin music. I groove to the Tijuana Tucanes, Jack Johnson, Macy Gray, Johnny Cash, Brave Combo, Black Eyed Peas, Afro-Cuban jazz, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke. I've never met a harmonica player that I didn't like. I love to dance, I love music, and I love to sing along.

Movies:

Movies whose plots I can't guess in the first 20 minutes.

Television:

I've heard of it. Actually, I'm a news junkie, so I have to keep away from it or I watch CNN, all the pundits, C-Span, the News Hour, the BBC. I scoff at FOX, and I brood about this country. My last TV I sold for twenty-five dollars. I helped the happy couple carry it out the door.

Books:

Too many favorites--lots of poets and novelists and thinkers: Dostoyevsky, Auden, T.S. Eliot, Dickinson, Emerson, Whitman, Rilke, Neruda, Czeslaw Milosz, Calvino, Borges, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, William Langland, Wyatt, Donne, Hafiz, the Bible, the Dhammapada. I became a poet by tapping rocks against my head to see which cracked first.

Heroes:

Gilgamesh, Odysseus

My Blog

Goodbye

I said goodbye to Sonna,who used to bounce a ballagainst the dormitory wall,brooding. And I said goodbye to Rich, after drinking strong coffee,after the long, long party. I said goodbye to my g...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Mon, 05 May 2008 09:38:00 PST

The Try Work

I lost you three times trying to love.I left in a tizzy trying to love.I wanted to be better at trying to love.I found many others still trying to love.I sat wisely for hours trying to love.I turned t...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:18:00 PST

The Saddest Thing

The saddest thing, the way you keep waking,walking outdoors to the saddest transportthat carries you for miles to where you don't want to go, your papers ready, or your bag in hand, crossing the boule...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:21:00 PST

Monday Morning

Some days you make meso nervous, when you thinkI am dying or you wear your shirt inside outwhen you look to the horizonand see your past in a cloudand won't ask me to guessthe animal image. Li...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:17:00 PST

Sugar Boo

Boo, O Boo, I miss you, I miss everything about you, I miss the way you always seem To dive in for a kiss; I miss The way you slip around naked, Sure that I'm watching, and Sure, I'm...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:15:00 PST

Into My Eyes

That was the time I hardly knew how to speakcars and trucks passed me, wordless wondering at so much speed. Things moved slowly; I could hold them forever; things moved without me, so m...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:11:00 PST

Before I Sleep

Well, it's early evening, and I've just turned out of bed (a hell of a way to wake, the light already fading) but look on the bright side of thingsI have cigarettes, a computer that's aglow and hummi...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:51:00 PST

Misreading Our Lives

The story of which we speak is, perhaps,not even a story, rather it isa semblance of a story, just a smudgedinvitation to help you pass the timeas you travel quickly from paragraphto paragraph,...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:29:00 PST

The Leaf King

It begins like this: one hand on the rail,while the other wants to clutch sky. I fell once, from a house three floors high, survived to riseagain. This is how it begins, my friend, the fee...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:18:00 PST

After the Rain

After the rain, after the wet goodbyes to each droplet sliding sidewise home,after the emptying sky,after this night like no other,with these liquid thoughtsshining on our cheeks,I thought of you list...
Posted by Shawn Sturgeon on Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:52:00 PST