Steve Kowit

Steve Kowit
Kowit in 2011
Kowit in 2011
BornJune 30, 1938
Brooklyn, New York
United States
DiedApril 2, 2015 (aged 77)
Potrero, California
Occupationpoet, author, teacher
NationalityAmerican
EducationBrooklyn College

Steve Kowit (June 30, 1938 – April 2, 2015) was an American poet, essayist, educator, and human-rights advocate.[1][2][3][4][5]

He received multiple awards for his poetry.[6]

Biography

Kowit was born in Brooklyn, New York where as a young man he frequently gave poetry readings at coffee houses. After a stint in the Army Reserve, he earned his BA from Brooklyn College. He moved to San Francisco at the age of 27 spending time in the Haight-Ashbury district. Kowit earned a MA at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) when he was 30. After refusing Army induction at the beginning of the Vietnam War – or as Kowit called it, "America's genocidal slaughter of the Vietnamese people" – he traveled to Mexico, Central and South America with his wife, Mary. After the war Kowit returned to the States and resided in San Diego.[7][8][9]

In San Diego he started teaching Poetry Writing in his Ocean Beach, San Diego home in the late 1970s. He went on to teach classes at San Diego State University, University of California, San Diego and Southwestern College. His poetry workshops in public schools were acclaimed for "making writing fun."[10]

Writing in the San Francisco Examiner, Sheila Farr wrote of Kowit's poetry:

An easy charmer in his book The Dumbbell Nebula, Steve Kowit backs up the bantering narratives of a coffeehouse poet with drop-dead images and subtle control ... Kowit's work grows out of the Beat tradition, speaking obliquely and directly of its heroes ... Kowit doesn't get stuck there in self-satisfied beatdom, though, because he can't take himself seriously for long enough. He tickles heavy subjects into giggles of submission without making them look trivial or foolish. Kowit seems to enjoy toying with sound and rhythm, like a cat patting at a spider, and is partial to slant rhymes hidden in unruly cadences. He folds his content into soft mouthfuls of sound ... the poems grow more delicious in their crazy daring, epitomizing Kowit's own particular sidelong, silly way of approaching the truth.[11]

Awards

  • National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry
  • Two Pushcart Prizes
  • The Atlanta Review Paumanok Poetry Prize
  • The Oroborus Book Award
  • The San Diego Book Award
  • The Tampa Review Poetry Prize
  • San Diego Book Awards Theodor S. Geisel Award for The Gods of Rapture, 2007

Bibliography

Kowit reads his poem "Basic"
  • Incitement to Nixonicide by Pablo Neruda, Steve Kowit (Translator) (French & European Publications, 2002) ISBN 0960030638
  • The Maverick Poets: An Anthology by Steve Kowit (Editor), Kim Addonizio (Author) (Contributor), Wanda Coleman (Contributor), Billy Collins (Contributor) published 1988
  • In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop: a Lively and Illuminating Guide for the Practicing Poet (Tilbury House, 1995) ISBN 0884481492
  • The Dumbbell Nebula (1999)
  • The First Noble Truth (2007)
  • Cutting Our Losses (Contact II Publications, 1982)
  • Lurid Confessions (Carpenter Press, 1983)
  • The Gods of Rapture: Poems in the Erotic Mood (San Diego City Works Press, 2006)
  • Heart in utter confusion: Takes on the erotic poetry of India (1982) with Alan Horseradish (Illustrator)
  • Passionate Journey: Poems and Drawings in the Erotic Mood (City Miner Books, 1984) with Arthur Okamura
  • Mysteries of the Body: Poems by Steve Kowit (Uroboros Books, 1994)
  • Epic Journeys, Unbelievable Distances (1998)
  • Cherish: New and Selected Poems (University of Tampa Press, 2015)

References

  1. ^ "Last Will by Steve Kowit – San Diego Free Press". San Diego Free Press. April 3, 2015. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  2. ^ "Serving House Journal: Poetry: SHJ Editors: In Memory of Steve Kowit". servinghousejournal.com. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  3. ^ "PASSAGES: ACCLAIMED POTRERO POET STEVE KOWIT". East County Magazine. April 2, 2015. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  4. ^ "Steve Kowit's Obituary on San Diego Union-Tribune". U-T San Diego. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  5. ^ "San Diego bard of liberal causes". Los Angeles Times. April 13, 2005. p. B7. Retrieved August 31, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Serving House Journal: Poetry: SHJ Editors: In Memory of Steve Kowit". servinghousejournal.com. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  7. ^ "Steve Kowit dies at 76; San Diego poet championed numerous causes". Los Angeles Times. April 13, 2015. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  8. ^ Kowit, Carol Ann Fitzgerald and Steve. "The Sun Magazine | The Whole Inexplicable Business". thesunmagazine.org. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  9. ^ "Steve Kowit (1938–2015): Brilliant poet was revered professor". theswcsun.com. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  10. ^ "Author's poetry workshop makes writing fun". Arizona Daily Sun. October 15, 2000. p. D5. Retrieved August 31, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Farr, Sheila (April 30, 2000). "Two California Poets Cover Territory Unexpected and Familiar". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 5 Book Review. Retrieved October 1, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.