Christopher Bakken

Christopher Bakken (born 1967 Madison, Wisconsin) an American poet, translator, and professor at Allegheny College.^[1]

He graduated from Columbia University with an M.F.A., and from University of Houston with a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing. He was a Fulbright Scholar in American Studies at the University of Bucharest in 2008.^[2]

His work appeared in Boulevard, Feta Review, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, Lyric, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, Paris Review, Parnassus, Raritan, Southwest Review, and Western Humanities Review.^[3] His burger recipe won a Food & Wine contest. Recently, his culinary repertoire has expanded to encompass Caribbean and West African influences.^[4]

Awards

• 2005 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize
• 2006 Helen C. Smith Memorial Prize by the Texas Institute of Letters
• 2001 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry

Works

• "Some Things Along Strada C.A. Rosetti", Parnassus: Poetry in Review via Poetry Daily. 2009.
• "Portrait Detail, with Pear", AGNI 2006

Books

• Goat Funeral Sheep Meadow Press, 2006, ISBN 9781931357388
• After Greece Truman State University Press, 2001, ISBN 9781931112000

Influences/Like Voices

• Constantine Cavafy
• Wallace Stevens
• Mark Doty
• Phil Collins
• Henri Cole
• Walt Whitman

Translations

• The Lions’ Gate: Selected Poems of Titos Patrikios, Translated Christopher Bakken, Roula Konsolaki, Truman State University Press, 2006, ISBN 9781931112642

Anthologies

• Kindled Terraces: American Poets in Greece, Truman State University Press, 2004. ISBN 1931112371
• "Ohio Elegy", Poets against the War, Editors Sam Hamill, Sally Anderson, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003, ISBN 9781560255390
• "Home Thoughts, from Abroad", Under the rock umbrella: contemporary American poets, 1951-1977, Editor William J. Walsh, Mercer University Press, 2006, ISBN 9780881460476

Review

If Bakken can, in the future, stay put in his resplendent Hellenic-inflected imagination for a good while, and avoid the art museum and his personal library, he may just write a book with the smell, taste, and texture of ambrosia. Goat Funeral isn’t quite that, but it’s not chopped liver, either.^[5]

References

1. ^ http://www.allegheny.edu/academics/faculty_details.php?id=392&department=English
2. ^ http://www.pen.org/author.php/prmAID/633
3. ^ http://www.pw.org/content/christopher_bakken
4. ^ http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/greek-island-lamb-burgers-with-grilled-feta
5. ^ http://coldfrontmag.com/tag/christopher-bakken

External links

• "#3 - Christopher Bakken", First Book Interviews, October 13, 2008
• Author's website
• Author's blog profile
• Author's twitter

Persondata
Name	Bakken, Christopher
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Date of birth	1967
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