As National Poetry Month comes to a close, we’ll spend the final days focusing close to home, on our very own English department poets — Matthew Cooperman, Sasha Steensen, Dan Beachy-Quick, and Camille Dungy.

Poet, professor and essayist Dan Beachy-Quick is next up for our local poets. He is an Associate Professor from CSU’s own English department.

Born in Chicago, he was raised in both Colorado and upstate New York. After graduating with a BA in English from the University of Denver, Beachy-Quick received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 2000.

Since graduating, Beachy-Quick has both written his own poetry and taught others about the craft. Before teaching at CSU, he taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Poetry Foundation explains that his poetry “draws its material from a wide range of sources” and “is often united by a focused engagement with the fabric of sound and the pattern of echoes.”

He has published five books of poetry, including Circle’s Apprentice (2011), North True South Bright (2003), Spell (2004), Mulberry (2006), and This Nest, Swift Passerine (2009).

This Nest, Swift Passerine was a finalist for three awards in 2010: the Colorado Book Award in Poetry, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the PEN USA Literary Award in poetry. The collection Circle’s Apprentice won the 2011 Colorado Prize in Poetry and it was named Notable Book of 2011 by the Academy of American Poets.

Publisher’s Weekly described Beachy-Quick as “a supple and well-read poet with a fine ear” and explains that he has “long studied–some might even say he has been obsessed with–Moby Dick.” It’s not surprising that this essay collection in 2008 titled A Whaler’s Dictionary builds off the journeys of Melville’s Ahab and Ishmael.

Beachy-Quick’s reach extends beyond the CSU English department. This year, he was awarded a Research Fellow from the Global Environmental Sustainability at CSU. He is the principal investigator for the Crisis and Creativity Global Challenges Research Team here at CSU. Beachy-Quick’s research team “represents a unique, trans-disciplinary collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities that will address the increasing threat that specific loss poses to global environmental sustainability.” Read SOURCE’s article to learn more about his team and the other fellows.

Video: Dan Beachy-Quick, Live Your Passion at Colorado State University College of Liberal Arts