Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, Florida State University
David Kirby’s collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for both the National Book Award and Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize. Kirby is the author of 36 books on various topics, including Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense” and was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of 2010. He has won five university teaching awards, and recently the Florida Humanities Council presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing. He is married to the poet and fiction writer Barbara Hamby, and his recent publications include a poetry collection, Help Me, Information, as well as a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them.