{{short description|American poet and literary critic (born 1961)}} {{other people}} {{Infobox writer | name = Elizabeth Willis | image = poetpic.jpg | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1961|04|28}} | birth_place = Bahrain | death_date = | death_place = | education = University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire (BA)<br/>University at Buffalo (MA, PhD) | occupation = Poet, Professor, Literary Critic | notableworks = ''Meteoric Flowers;'' ''Turneresque;'' ''The Human Abstract'' }} thumb|Elizabeth Willis in Speaking Portraits, c.2004 '''Elizabeth Willis''' (born April 28, 1961, Bahrain) is an American poet and literary critic. She currently serves as Professor of Poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.<ref name="uiowa1">{{cite web|url=http://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/people/elizabeth-willis |title=Elizabeth Willis - Iowa Writers' Workshop - College of Liberal Arts & Sciences - The University of Iowa |publisher=Writersworkshop.uiowa.edu |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref> Willis has won several awards for her poetry including the National Poetry Series and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Susan Howe has called Elizabeth Willis "an exceptional poet, one of the most outstanding of her generation."<ref name="Upne.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.upne.com/0819568139.html |title=UPNEBookPartners - Meteoric Flowers: Elizabeth Willis |publisher=Upne.com |access-date=2016-05-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014091310/https://www.upne.com/0819568139.html |archive-date=2018-10-14 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>
==Life== Willis was born in Bahrain and grew up in the Midwestern United States.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2020 |title=Elizabeth Willis in conversation with Katrina Turner |url=https://www.benningtonreview.org/issue-eight-interview-elizabethwillis |journal=Bennington Review |issue=8}}</ref> She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://www.wesleyan.edu/templates/dept/engl/skeleton_faculty.htt?function%3Df1%26department%3DENGL%26faculty%3Dewillis |title=Elizabeth Willis - English Department - Wesleyan University |access-date=August 17, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504013410/http://www.wesleyan.edu/templates/dept/engl/skeleton_faculty.htt?function=f1&department=ENGL&faculty=ewillis |archive-date=May 4, 2013 }}</ref> then went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Poetics Program at University at Buffalo.
Willis has taught at several institutions including Brown University, Mills College, the University of Denver and Wesleyan University and has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Centre International de Poésie, Marseille.<ref name="buffalo1">{{cite web |title=EPC / Elizabeth Willis Bio and Publications |url=http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/willis/willis-pub.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060905144848/http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/willis/willis-pub.html |archive-date=2006-09-05 |access-date=2016-05-19 |publisher=Wings.buffalo.edu}}</ref> Formerly the Shapiro-Silverberg professor of literature and creative writing at Wesleyan University, she currently serves as Professor of Poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.<ref name="uiowa1"/>
Willis has been awarded fellowships from the California Arts Council and the Howard Foundation and has won the National Poetry Series, the PEN New England Award and the Boston Review Prize for Poetry.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.elizabethwillis.net/ElizabethWillis/bio|title = Bio}}</ref> In 2012, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/17328-elizabeth-willis |title=Elizabeth Willis - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=April 17, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418214617/http://www.gf.org/fellows/17328-elizabeth-willis |archive-date=April 18, 2012 }}</ref> Willis lives in Iowa City.
==Work== As a poet, Willis employs the use of "hybrid genres," an attempt to "push the limits of representation." ''Turneresque,'' for instance, draws on elements as diverse as the Romantic sublime and film noir. In terms of style, Willis is most often recognized for her "intense lyricism."<ref name="blogspot1">{{cite web|author=greenintegerblog |url=https://pippoetry.blogspot.com/2010/06/elizabeth-willis.html |title=The PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) Blog: Elizabeth Willis |publisher=Pippoetry.blogspot.com |date=2010-06-14 |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref> Her poetry tends to center on the relationship between art and nature and has been noted for its musicality and precision.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bostonreview.net/BR32.6/poetrycontest.php |title=Boston Review — willis.PHP |access-date=September 18, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090916195618/http://bostonreview.net/BR32.6/poetrycontest.php |archive-date=September 16, 2009 }}</ref>
Her literary criticism is concerned with 19th century and 20th century poetry and the ways in which changing technology comes to influence the production of poetry. She also investigates the effects of public and private spaces in her prose.<ref name="buffalo1"/> Additionally, Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics and the relationship between contemporary poets and antecedent poets are also frequent concerns of her work.<ref name="blogspot1"/> Willis has dedicated a significant portion of her career to a study of the works of Lorine Niedecker.
==Reception== Elizabeth Willis's poetry has been widely praised. Jacket Magazine reported that ''Meteoric Flowers'' "offers the reader a strange and at times almost overwhelmingly pleasurable world."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jacketmagazine.com/30/kane-willis.html |title=Jacket 30 - July 2006 - Daniel Kane reviews "Meteoric Flowers" by Elizabeth Willis |publisher=Jacketmagazine.com |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref> Poet Ron Silliman wrote that the collection "is filled with brief, well-balanced, brilliantly written prose poems."<ref>{{cite web|author=Link |url=https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Willis |title=Silliman's Blog |publisher=Ronsilliman.blogspot.com |date=2006-10-23 |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref> Susan Howe wrote, "Elizabeth Willis is an exceptional poet, one of the most outstanding of her generation, and ''Meteoric Flowers'' is her most compelling collection to date." Rosmarie Waldrop said that the collection "is a remarkable investigation of our experience and language."<ref name="Upne.com"/>
In a review of ''Turneresque,'' the Denver Quarterly reported that Willis "succeeds...in reinvesting language with the uniqueness of origin: the breath gesture of each letter." Ann Lauterbach wrote that Willis "recovers the originating lyric impulse into a haunting contemporary song. This is poetry of amazing intelligence and grace."<ref name="burningdeck1">{{cite web|url=http://www.burningdeck.com/catalog/willis.htm |title=Elizabeth Willis: Turneresque |publisher=Burningdeck.com |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref> Cole Swensen wrote, "What drives Willis’s incisive commentary into stunning poetry are her gorgeous lines...Despite a distinctly noir atmosphere and the unsettling quality that always attends the sublime, Turneresque comes off as affirmative, even jocularly courageous. It seems - to borrow one of its phrases - "to imply or intone whole possibility of human sun."<ref name="burningdeck1"/>
Of ''Address,'' Jeffrey Cyphers Wright wrote that the collection was "humorous, political, engaged, and deeply resonant." Michael Palmer wrote that the book movingly engages "eternal issues." Alice Notley wrote that "Willis newly revives the list/litany form, and that works to the reader’s delight."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.upne.com/0819570987.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129075218/http://www.upne.com/0819570987.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=January 29, 2012 |title=UPNEBookPartners - Address: Elizabeth Willis |publisher=Upne.com |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref>
Reviewing ''Second Law,'' Susan Howe wrote, "The poems in Second Law are terse, precise, ecstatic and luminous. White letters serve as lures and traces through gaps of ordered scientific discourse, the rapture of the poet's will remains captive and rejoicing. In these linked fragmentary linguistic structures Elizabeth Willis enters Bunyan's emblematic river another time; singing."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.durationpress.com/avenueb/secondlaw.htm |title=Elizabeth Willis: Second Law |publisher=Durationpress.com |access-date=2016-05-19}}</ref>
Her 2024 collection, ''Liontaming in America'', was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=The 2024 National Book Awards Longlist |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/2024-national-book-awards-longlist |access-date=13 September 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=12 September 2024}}</ref>
==Awards== * 1994 National Poetry Series, for ''The Human Abstract'' * Howard Foundation Fellowship * PEN New England Award * Residency at the MacDowell Colony * 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship * 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Finalist <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/elizabeth-willis|title=Finalist: Alive: New and Selected Poems, by Elizabeth Willis (NYRB)|publisher=Pulitzer.org |access-date=2016-05-31}}</ref>
==Bibliography== === Poetry === ;Collections * {{Cite book |title=Second Law |publisher=Avenue B |year=1992 |isbn=9780939691081}} * {{cite book |title=The Human Abstract |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-14-024935-4}} * {{Cite book |title=Turneresque |publisher=Burning Deck |year=2003 |isbn=9781886224629}} * {{cite book |title=Meteoric Flowers |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BP4bfTUFNnoC&q=Elizabeth+Willis |isbn=978-0-8195-6813-7}} * {{Cite book |title=Address |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780819573483}} * {{Cite book |title=Alive: New and Selected Poems |publisher=New York Review Books |year=2015 |isbn=9781590178645}} * {{Cite book |title=Spectral Evidence |publisher=Litmus Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-933959-55-9}} (With Nancy Bowen) * {{Cite book |title=Liontaming In America |date=2024 |publisher=New Directions Books |isbn=9780811238632}} <!--;Anthologies (edited)--> ;List of poems {|class='wikitable sortable' width='90%' |- !width=25%|Title !|Year !|First published !|Reprinted/collected |- |About the Author |2015 |{{cite magazine |date=January 12, 2015 |title=About the author |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=90 |issue=43 |pages=30 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/12/author-9 <!--accessdate=2019-07-19-->}} | |- |Both Roads |2024 |{{Cite book |title=Liontaming in America |publisher=New Directions Books |year=2024 |isbn=978-0-8112-3863-2 |pages=94}} |Harper's Magazine(October 2024 Issue) |- |The Perils of Pauline (1914) |2024 |The New York Review (July 18, 2024 Issue) | |- |Future Imperfect |2023 |e-flux Journal (Issue 136) | |- |Two Poems |2022 |Harper's Magazine (April 2022 Issue) | |- |Two Poems | |Company Editions | |- |In the Body, of a Book | |Three Fold Press | |- |Plot |2016 |The New Yorker (November 14, 2016 Issue) | |- |Cut Piece |2018 |Chicago Review |- |The Witch |2011 |Boston Review | |- |Without Pity |1997 |{{Cite magazine |date=Spring 1997 |title=Without Pity |url= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |magazine=Conjunctions |issue=28}}<ref>{{Cite journal |date=Spring 1997 |title=Without Pity |url=https://www.conjunctions.com/print/article/elizabeth-willis-c28 |journal=Conjuctions |issue=28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813135417/http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c28-ew.htm |archive-date=2009-08-13 |access-date=2025-12-17}}</ref> | |- |Valet of the Shadow of Death |2007 |The Nation (November 26, 2007 Issue) | |- |Vernacular Architecture; Madame Cézanne as Sainte-Victoire; The Oldest Garden in the World; Nocturne; Bohemian Rhapsody |2007 |Boston Review (November/December 2007 Issue)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Willis |first=Elizabeth |date=2007-11-01 |title=Tenth Annual Poetry Contest Winner |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/elizabeth-willis-poetry-contest-winner/ |url-status=live |journal=Boston Review |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090916195618/http://bostonreview.net/BR32.6/poetrycontest.php |archive-date=2009-09-16}}</ref> | |} <!-- Move entries below into the table above --> * [http://www.speakeasy.org/~subtext//poetry/willis/poem1.htm "The Human Abstract", ''subtext''] * [http://www.speakeasy.org/~subtext//poetry/willis/poem2.htm "The Relation of the Lion to the Book is the Number 5 ", ''subtext''] * [http://www.speakeasy.org/~subtext//poetry/willis/poem3.htm "Envoi", ''subtext''] * [http://www.webdelsol.com/NO/three/willis.htm "Primeval Islands"; "Why No New Planets Are Ejected from the Sun"; "Oil and Water", '' No: a journal of the arts'', No. 3]
=== Criticism === * [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19229 "Who Was Lorine Niedecker?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006034616/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19229 |date=2013-10-06 }} ''American Poet'', Academy of American Poets, 2006 * {{cite book |title=Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Politics of Place |publisher=University of Iowa Press |year=2006 |isbn=9781587296987}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * Interview with Elizabeth Willis [http://www.gulfcoastmag.org/index.php?n=2&si=49&s=3051 "'A Poem Argues for its Own Existence': An Interview with Elizabeth Willis" in ''Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts'' (25.1)]. *[http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/willis/ "Elizabeth Willis Homepage"] at the Electronic Poetry Center *[https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Willis Ron Silliman on ''Meteoric Flowers''] poet Ron Silliman talks about ''Meteoric Flowers'' on his blog, entry for Monday, October 23, 2006 *[http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Willis.html "Elizabeth Willis, ''PennSound'']
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Willis, Elizabeth}} Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century American poets Category:American literary critics Category:American women literary critics Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:The New Yorker people Category:University at Buffalo alumni Category:University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire alumni Category:Wesleyan University faculty Category:American women academics Category:21st-century American women poets