Graham Foust

Graham W. Foust (born August 25, 1970)^[1] is an American poet and currently is an associate professor at the University of Denver.^[2]

Early life and education

Foust was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.^[3][4] He has a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Beloit College, a Master of Fine Arts from George Mason University, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York-Buffalo.^[1][5]

Academic

Foust teaches contemporary poetry in both an English literature and creative writing context.^[6] From 1998 to 2000, Foust, along with Benjamin Friedlander, co-edited Lagniappe, an online journal devoted to poetry and poetics.^[7][8] From 2002 to 2005, Foust was a professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa;^[9] he is presently an associate professor at the University of Denver.^[2]

Poet

What part of
"What part of no
don’t you understand?"

don’t you understand…

—"Poem with Television"^[10]

Foust has written six full collections of poetry; As in Every Deafness (Flood Editions, 2003),^[11][12] Leave the Room to Itself (Ahsahta Press, 2004), Necessary Stranger (Flood Editions, 2007), A Mouth in California (Flood Editions, 2009), To Anacreon In Heaven (Flood Editions, 2013), and "Time Down to Mind" (Flood Editions, 2015).^[13]

He most recently published a collection of translations from German, in collaboration with Samuel Frederick, of Ernst Meister's later poems titled In Time's Rift [Im Zeitspalt], through Wave Books in September, 2012.^[14]

Reception

You don’t lust
for what you
want. You lust
for what you

can get.

—"Poem With Rules and Laws"^[10]

Three of Foust's poems were featured in the winter 2009 (volume 43, issue 1) edition of The Laurel Review: The Only Poem, Promotional, and Frost at Midnight. Foust's work was also chosen by Robert Creeley for the Beyond Arcadia issue of Conjunctions.^[15]

David Pavelich believes Foust's poetry to be "a unique blend of whisper and raw humor, darkness and economy of thought".^[15] Foust's third book, Necessary Stranger, was described as "intense, hip, ironic and subtly humorous" in Publishers Weekly,^[16] and in December 2007 reached third place on the small-press poetry best-seller list.^[17] His fourth book, A Mouth in California, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which noted that Foust had "achieved a wide reputation in and beyond experimental poetry circles for his clipped, breathless poems, often no longer than one or two haiku, but packing an intimate punch that belies their length."^[18]

Foust has cited Rae Armantrout as an influence; Armantrout pronounced herself "quite pleased" with that, saying she was "very fond of [Foust's] work", but considered Foust to have a distinctive style: "Foust's poems are minimalist, yes, more so than mine, in fact, but his sensibility is very much his own."^[19] A review of A Mouth in California in the Oxonian Review characterised Foust's work as "bleak, funny, curt, and self-effacing", informed by the understanding that "everyday speech, set slightly out of joint or context, can deliver both personal and collective revelation. [...] Foust [...] doesn’t take himself too seriously, yet he’s a seriously good poet. [...] And best of all, Foust is subtle."^[20]

Bibliography

• Nightingalelessness (Flood Editions, 2018)
• Time Down to Mind (Flood Editions, 2015)
• Of Entirety Say the Sentence, poems by Ernst Meister, co-translated with Samuel Frederick (Wave Books, 2015)
• Wallless Space, poems by Ernst Meister, co-translated with Samuel Frederick (Wave Books, 2014)
• To Anacreon in Heaven and Other Poems (Flood Editions, 2013)
• In Time's Rift [Im Zeitspalt] poems by Ernst Meister, co-translated with Samuel Frederick (Wave Books, 2012)
• A Mouth In California (Flood Editions, 2009)
• Necessary Stranger (Flood Editions, 2007)
• As in Every Deafness (Flood Editions, 2003)
• Leave the Room to Itself (Ahsahta, 2003)