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Joshua Harmon (poet)

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For the playwright born in 1983, see Joshua Harmon (playwright).

Joshua Harmon
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation
  • Poet
  • novelist
  • short story writer
  • essayist
EducationMarlboro College
Cornell University (MFA)
Notable awardsAkron Poetry Prize (2010)

Joshua Harmon (born 1971) is an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He has authored six books, including The Soft Path (poems, 2019), The Annotated Mixtape (nonfiction, 2014), History of Cold Seasons (short stories, 2014), Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie (poems, 2011), Scape (poems, 2009), and Quinnehtukqut (novel, 2007).

Life and work

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Harmon was born and raised in Massachusetts. He was educated at Marlboro College[1][2] and at Cornell University, where he earned an MFA in fiction.[3]

Quinnehtukqut, excerpts of which were awarded a 2004 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in prose,[4] was short-listed for the 2008 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.[5] Of this novel, Open Letters Monthly wrote that "Quinnehtukqut is the most impressive debut I can remember,"[6] while The Village Voice wrote that "Harmon...concerns himself with formal innovation at the expense of a coherent narrative."[7]

Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie was awarded the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize by judge G.C. Waldrep and published in the Akron Series in Poetry.[8] The Rumpus called the book "Part love song, part ethnography, part cry for help."[9] Reviewing Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie in Rain Taxi, poet Donna Stonecipher wrote that "in both free-verse and prose poem forms, [Harmon] uses lyric’s heightened capacity for beauty to detail Poughkeepsie’s ugliness in defiantly beautiful formulations."[10] In West Branch, Ellen Wehle writes "Though I’m tempted to call it an elegy, Spleen is really more a love song, immersing me in the sights and sounds and sadnesses of a place I’ve never known but feel as if I do. … As he moves from page to page, Harmon just keeps turning his theme like a prism, finding ever subtler variations."[11]

The Annotated Mixtape was considered "an essay collection on the nature of obsession" by The Rumpus.[12] The Normal School called it "a journey into the mind of a true music junkie. [Harmon's] essays invite you into his musical obsessions through personal narrative, social criticism, and beautifully precise language, making you care about bands you’ve never heard of before."[13] Kirkus Reviews described History of Cold Seasons as "a dozen stories that mash up poetic, dreamlike observations with the caustic, inbred hardiness of New Englanders,"[14] and the BBC called the book "a remarkably assured and poetic first collection."[15]

Harmon's second volume in the Akron Series in Poetry, The Soft Path was called "intricate, intelligent, and complex," "an at times daunting though persistently rewarding collection of sound and landscape, of fragmented language and tenacious poetic cycles, of meaning-making and of diving into our political and environmental quagmires" by The Rumpus.[16] Harmon described it as "a book composed on the move, in fragments … but also a book about how commuting (among many other forces) often keeps us from anything but a superficial relationship with places."[17] Poetry Northwest, in a review of the book, noted "That some anti-capitalist sentiment would accompany close attention to sets of fraught and fraying systems should not come as any surprise, and the book’s dual epigraphs—a few lines from Ed Roberson’s Atmosphere Conditions and an excerpt from Amory B. Lovins’s prepared testimony to the U.S. Senate in 1976—do plenty to announce these poems’ incoming concerns with respect to economy and ecology. But there is a refreshing sense of possibility to The Soft Path’s treatment of this familiar set of problems, a freeness in its rendering that reminds us of the decadent fields of perception that language can open onto, even in application to our lamest of worldly conundrums."[18]

Harmon's writing has appeared in various periodicals, including AGNI,[19] Antioch Review,[20][21] The Believer,[22] Black Warrior Review,[23][24] BOMB (magazine),[25] New England Review,[26] The Rumpus,[27] TriQuarterly, and Verse. His chapbook Outtakes, B-Sides, & Demos was awarded the 2019 Paul Bowles Award and published as the first title from Five Points Editions.[28]

Harmon has taught at Bucknell University,[29] Clark University,[30] Worcester Polytechnic Institute,[31] and Vassar College,[32] where he was also the 2013 Writer-in-Residence.[33]

Bibliography

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Notes

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  1. ^ [1] Archived February 25, 2019, at the Wayback Machine "Author: Joshua Harmon".[permanent dead link‍]
  2. ^ [2] "Literary Fest returns as flavorful, funny and serious celebration of the printed word". September 27, 2007.
  3. ^ [3] Cornell Writers
  4. ^ [4] NEA Writers' Corner website
  5. ^ [5] VCU Cabell First Novelist Award website
  6. ^ [6] "Voices in the Woods". Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  7. ^ [7] "The Wood Demons". July 24, 2007. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  8. ^ [8] University of Akron Press website
  9. ^ [9] "Poor Little Poughkeepsie". April 6, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  10. ^ [10] "Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie". November 11, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  11. ^ [11]"No Fast Food Here: In Praise of Serious Poetry" (PDF).
  12. ^ [12] "The Annotated Mixtape by Joshua Harmon". March 12, 2015.
  13. ^ [13] "A Normal Interview With Joshua Harmon". December 23, 2014.
  14. ^ [14] "History of Cold Seasons".
  15. ^ [15] "Ten Books to Read in December".
  16. ^ "The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #229: Joshua Harmon".
  17. ^ "The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #229: Joshua Harmon".
  18. ^ "so / many / connections". October 5, 2020.
  19. ^ [16] AGNI
  20. ^ [17] Antioch Review
  21. ^ [18] Antioch Review
  22. ^ [19] The Believer
  23. ^ [20] Black Warrior Review
  24. ^ [21] Black Warrior Review
  25. ^ [22] BOMB
  26. ^ [23] New England Review
  27. ^ "Joshua Harmon".
  28. ^ "Join Us for the Launch of Joshua Harmon's Outtakes, B-Sides, and Demos". April 9, 2019.
  29. ^ [24] "Notes on Contributors". The Iowa Review. 30 (2). 2000. JSTOR 20154850.
  30. ^ [25] "Faculty biography".
  31. ^ [26] "WPI Announces Faculty Promotions and Tenure Awards 2017"
  32. ^ [27] "Faculty"
  33. ^ [28] Kim, Hae Seo. "New Writer in Residence Harmon Follows a Rich Legacy." The Miscellany News, February 20, 2013.
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