B. H. Fairchild

B.H. Fairchild is an award-winning American poet and college professor.

Born in 1942, B.H. Fairchild grew up in small towns in the oil fields of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, later working through high school and college for his father, a lathe machinist. [http://www.poems.com/essafair.htm] Mariani, Paul "A Conversation with B.H. Fairchild", from ' 'Image' ' magazine, Fall 2005, reproduced by Poetry Daily Web site, accessed October 29, 2006]

He teaches English at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas [ [http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/Fairchild.html NEA Writers' Corner: A Starlit Night by B.H. Fairchild ] ] [ [http://www.eng.tcu.edu/Faculty/profiles/bhfairchild.htm B. H. Fairchild | Texas Christian University ] ] National Endowment for the Arts Web site, Web page titled "Features: Writer's Corner: B.H. Fairchild", accessed October 29, 2006] lives in Claremont, California with his wife and daughter.

His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Poetry, TriQuarterly, The Hudson Review, Salmagundi, The Sewanee Review and other journals.

Fairchild has written that a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts was vital to his career as a poet: "It's very simple: without an NEA Fellowship in 1989-90, I would not have been able to complete my second book, "Local Knowledge", nor have had the necessary time to compose the core poems for "The Art of the Lathe", my third book, which, I am proud to say, received the Kingsley Tufts Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, thus bringing my work to a wider audience than the immediate members of my family and also, therefore, making future work possible." [ [http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/Fairchild.html] National Endowment for the Arts Web site, Web page titled "Features: Writer's Corner: B.H. Fairchild", accessed October 29, 2006]

Books

Poetry

*"The System of Which the Body Is One Part"
*"Flight"
*"Local Knowledge"
*"The Art of the Lathe" (Alice James Books, 1998), Awards: 1999 William Carlos Williams Award, 1999 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, 1999 California Book Award, 1999 Natalie Ornish Poetry Award, 1999 PEN Center USA West Poetry Award, 1998 National Book Award finalist, 1997 Beatrice Hawley Award, 1996 Capricorn Poetry Award [ [http://www.waywiser-press.com/fairchild.html] Waywiser Press Web site, Web page titled "B.H. Fairchild, ' 'The Art of the Lathe' ' ", accessed October 29, 2006]
*"Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest" (W.W. Norton), National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry (2002)

Other

*"Such Holy Song", a study of William Blake

Awards

*Guggenheim fellowship
*Rockefeller fellowship
*Arthur Rense Poetry Prize, 2002, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
*Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, 2005
*Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, 2004
*National Book Critics Circle Award
*William Carlos Williams Award, 1999
*Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, 1999
*California Book Award, 1999
*Natalie Ornish Poetry Award, 1999
*PEN Center USA West Poetry Award, 1999
*Finalist, National Book Award, 1998
*Beatrice Hawley Award, 1997
*Capricorn Poetry Award, 1996

*Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference
*National Writers’ Union First Prize
*AWP Anniversary Award

Notes

External links

* [http://www.cprw.com/Bakken/fairchild.htm] Article on Fairchild's poems in "Contemporary Poetry Review" ("The Plains Pastoral of B.H. Fairchild" by Christopher Bakken, undated)

Poetry online

* [http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/Fairchild.html "A Starlit Night"]
* [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_gill.shtml "For Junior Gilliam"]
* [http://www.acarts.org/mystic/Mystic2-fair.html "Motion Sickness"]
* [http://www.nationalbook.org/bookchanged_bhfairchild_nbm.html "Ernest Thomson Seton's Biography of a Grizzly" (bottom of Web page)]
* [http://www.waywiser-press.com/fairchild.html "Two Photographs," "Old Men Playing Basketball" (bottom of Web page)]
* [http://www.imagejournal.org/back/035/fairchild_poetry.asp "The Problem", "The Deposition"]