Frederick Turner (poet)
Frederick Turner (born 1943 Northamptonshire, England) is an American poet and academic. He is the author of two full-length epic science fiction poems, The New World and Genesis; several books of poetry; and a number of other works. He has been called "a major poet of our time"[1] and "a universal scholar - a rare find in a world of over-specialization - whose work transects and borrows from several rather disparate fields."[2]
Career
Turner is currently Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas.[3] Previous academic positions included the University of California, Santa Barbara (assistant professor 1967-72), Kenyon College (associate professor 1972-85), and the University of Exeter in England (visiting professor 1984-85). From 1978-82 he was editor of The Kenyon Review.
Writing
As a poet he uses the longer genres, the narrative, science fiction, and strict metrical forms. He is a winner of the Milan Fust Prize (shared with Zsuzsanna Ozsváth) and the Levinson Poetry Prize, awarded by Poetry Magazine (1983).[4]
Reviews and commentary
- "In Hadean Eclogues, Frederick Turner..., an interdisciplinary scholar and devotee of the classics, searches for a modern Arcadia, the sacred and taboo gateway between heaven and Earth that inspired the poets of old. He finds it in a startling place - the emerging suburbs in the cities of his adopted home, Texas." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune[5]
- Genesis, an Epic Poem, by Frederick Turner... (It) doesn’t seem like an epic poem about the terraforming of Mars, using characters modeled partly on Greek mythology, would be a recipe for success. But Turner is an exceptionally skillful poet, who when he wrote this book had already completed a fascinating Mars novel, A Double Shadow (1978), and another fine book-length narrative poem, The New World (1985). Here, the Olympian grandeur of the characters and plot match well with the Martian landscape, which under its rapid terraforming is still recognizably a place established in the popular imagination by the Viking landers. The result is a triumph that deserves to be better known." --IEEE Spectrum[6]
Personal life
Frederick Turner was born in Northamptonshire, England, in 1943. His parents were cultural anthropologists Victor Turner and Edith Turner; due to their professional travels he was raised in Africa, the United States, and England.[7] Frederick Turner was educated at the University of Oxford (1962–67), where he obtained the degrees of B.A., M.A., and B.Litt. in English Language and Literature. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1977. His brother is Robert Turner. He has been married since 1966 to Mei Lin Turner and has two sons.
References
- ↑ Golden, Gayle (September 2, 1990). "Universal Poet: Frederick Turner is shaking the literary world with his ideas about mankind's rightful place in the cosmos". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ↑ Template:Name = "Gerry"
- ↑ "Frederick Turner, Founders Professor". University of Texas at Dallas. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ↑ "Prizes : Poetry Magazine". The Poetry Foundation. 2011-06-09. Retrieved 2012-06-29.
- ↑ Miller, Pamela (January 9, 2000). "Three poets explore disillusionment and its aftermath". Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ↑ Robinson, Kim Stanley (June 1990). "My 10 Favorite Mars Novels". IEEE Spectrum. Archived from the original on December 22, 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ↑ O'Sullivan, Gerry; Pletsch, Carl (November 1, 1993). "Save Export Email Print Cite Inventing arcadia: an interview with Frederick Turner". The Humanist. Retrieved 6 July 2012.