JOHN YAU
Name: John Yau
Born: 1950
John Yau (born 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City.
According to Matthew Rohrer's profile on Yau from Poets and Writers Magazine,
Yau's parents settled in Boston after emigrating from China in 1949. Yau
characterizes his father as an outsider - "My father was half English and half
Chinese [...] so he never fit in." As a child Yau was friends with the son of
the Chinese-born abstract painter John Way. By the late 1960's Yau was exposed
to "a lot of anti-war poetry readings in Boston [and] so I'd heard Robert Bly,
Denise Levertov, Galway Kinnell, people like that. I don't know--Robert Kelly
just seemed a different kind of poet. Mysterious, in a way. He was interested in
the occult, in gnosticism and abstract art--things that had a particular appeal
to me." According to Rohrer, Yau's decision to attend Bard College was motivated
by his admiration of Kelly.
He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn
College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books,
fiction, and art criticism. His most recent book is Paradiso Diaspora (2006).
His collections of poetry include Borrowed Love Poems (Penguin, 2002), Forbidden
Entries (1996), Berlin Diptychon(1995), Edificio Sayonara (1992), and Corpse and
Mirror (1983), a National Poetry Series book selected by John Ashbery (to whom
he is often compared). Artists' books include books with Hanns Schimannsky,
Archie Rand,Norman Bluhm, and Jurgen Partenheimer (a.o.), his books of art
criticism include The United States of Jasper Johns (1996) and In the Realm of
Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol (1993). He has also edited Fetish (1998), a
fiction anthology.
Yau's honors include the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the
Jerome Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review, and grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the
General Electric Foundation. He currently teaches art criticism at Mason Gross
School of the Arts, Rutgers University.
Name: John Yau
Born: 1950
John Yau (born 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City.
According to Matthew Rohrer's profile on Yau from Poets and Writers Magazine,
Yau's parents settled in Boston after emigrating from China in 1949. Yau
characterizes his father as an outsider - "My father was half English and half
Chinese [...] so he never fit in." As a child Yau was friends with the son of
the Chinese-born abstract painter John Way. By the late 1960's Yau was exposed
to "a lot of anti-war poetry readings in Boston [and] so I'd heard Robert Bly,
Denise Levertov, Galway Kinnell, people like that. I don't know--Robert Kelly
just seemed a different kind of poet. Mysterious, in a way. He was interested in
the occult, in gnosticism and abstract art--things that had a particular appeal
to me." According to Rohrer, Yau's decision to attend Bard College was motivated
by his admiration of Kelly.
He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn
College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books,
fiction, and art criticism. His most recent book is Paradiso Diaspora (2006).
His collections of poetry include Borrowed Love Poems (Penguin, 2002), Forbidden
Entries (1996), Berlin Diptychon(1995), Edificio Sayonara (1992), and Corpse and
Mirror (1983), a National Poetry Series book selected by John Ashbery (to whom
he is often compared). Artists' books include books with Hanns Schimannsky,
Archie Rand,Norman Bluhm, and Jurgen Partenheimer (a.o.), his books of art
criticism include The United States of Jasper Johns (1996) and In the Realm of
Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol (1993). He has also edited Fetish (1998), a
fiction anthology.
Yau's honors include the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the
Jerome Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review, and grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the
General Electric Foundation. He currently teaches art criticism at Mason Gross
School of the Arts, Rutgers University.