Tony Crunk

Tony Crunk is an American poet whose first volume of poetry, Living in the Resurrection, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition.

Biography

Crunk was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.[1] He received his B.A. at Centre College, an M.A. in Philosophy at University of Kentucky, and an M.A. in Literature and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia.

Crunk has taught at the University of Virginia, James Madison University, Murray State University (Kentucky), the University of Montana, and University of Alabama Birmingham.[2] In 1997, he was awarded one of eight Writer's Community Residence Awards.[3]

Work

In 1994, his first collection of poetry, Living in the Resurrection (published in 1995), was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. In the foreword, James Dickey noted that these poems spoke of a "quest" for a spiritual home, which Dickey located in the American South, the art being that of "Southern gospel music and homiletics."[4] The theme of an odyssey is echoed by critic Steve Harris.[5] In a lengthy review of Crunk's work, critic Vincent King states that Dickey's conception of Crunk's art is a misreading (perhaps caused by Dickey's failing health in 1994), and that rather the tension between Crunk's Christian heritage and his rejection of his Southern Baptism is the key to the interpretation of the poems.[6]

Crunk's 2010 New Covenant Bound is a collection of poems inspired by the displacement between 1935 and 1969 of some 20,000 inhabitants from the area between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers in western Kentucky and Tennessee.[1]

Works

Poetry

  • Living In The Resurrection. Yale University Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-300-06526-8.
  • Parables and Revelations. Finishing Line Press. 2005. ISBN 1-59924-022-X.
  • Cumberland. 2007.
  • New Covenant Bound. University Press of Kentucky. 2010. ISBN 978-0-8131-2599-2.

Children's books

  • Big Mama. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 1999. ISBN 978-0-374-30688-5.
  • Grandpa's Overalls. Orchard Books. 2000. ISBN 978-0-531-30321-4.
  • Railroad John and the Red Rock Run. Peachtree. 2006. ISBN 978-1-56145-363-4.

Criticism

References

  1. 1 2 Ramsey, Austin (28 October 2011). "Poet presents collections to students". Murray State University. Retrieved 9 April 2012.
  2. ↑ The Kentucky anthology, Wade H. Hall, University Press of Kentucky, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8131-2376-9, p.802
  3. ↑ "News Notes". Poetry. 170 (2): 114–15. JSTOR 40733908.
  4. ↑ Tony Crunk (1994). Living In The Resurrection. Yale University Press. p. x. ISBN 978-0-300-06526-8.
  5. ↑ Harris, Steve (Summer 2000). "Rev. of Living in the Resurrection, by T. Crunk". Avatar Review. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  6. ↑ King, Vincent (2000). "Toward a new Southern poetry: Folk art and the post-Christian vision of Tony Crunk". Mississippi Quarterly. 53 (3): 415–36.

External references


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