Michael Van Walleghen
Born: 1938 in Detroit, Michigan
Died: May 20, 2022 in Champaign, Illinois Connection to Illinois: Van Walleghen taught at the University of Illinois from 1970 - 2005. He lived in Champaign from 1970 until the time of his passing. Biography: After serving in the U.S. Navy, Michael Van Walleghen earned his bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University and his MFA in 1965 from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He began his teaching career at Wichita State University and then taught at the University of Illinois from 1970 to 2005, where he helped to establish the MFA program in creative writing, serving as the first head. He was honored as emeritus professor upon retirement. He won many awards during his career, including the Borestone Mountain Poetry Award, Lamont Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize, literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts; and served as Illinois poet laureate.
Awards:
- More Trouble With the Obvious Winner, Lamont Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets.
Selected Titles
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Blue Tango: POEMS ISBN: 025206044X OCLC: Urbana : University of Illinois Press Urbana : 1989 A selection of poems evoke ambivalence, anger, and tenderness, addressing both the poet's past and present with precise detail. |
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In the Black Window: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Illinois Poetry Series) ISBN: 0252071786 OCLC: Urbana : University of Illinois Press Urbana : 2004 The title of Michael Van Walleghen's new collection evokes thematic preoccupations that have shadowed him throughout his long career. Appearing as a phrase in the poems themselves, In the Black Window more generally points to Van Walleghen's enduring interest in the intersection between inner and outer worlds of experience--those liminal moments in other worlds where we become aware of ourselves. We live at once in a strictly personal, material dimension but also in a distinctly spiritual one. Yet, when looking from a lighted kitchen into a night-black window on a winter evening, we might perhaps become suddenly aware not only of our own reflection, but also of our complicity in some deeper mystery altogether. |
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More Trouble with the Obvious: Poems ISBN: 0252008642 OCLC: University of Illinois Press 1981 |
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Tall Birds Stalking (Pitt Poetry Series) ISBN: 0822937948 OCLC: Pittsburgh : Univ of Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh : 1994 |
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The Last Neanderthal (Pitt Poetry Series) ISBN: 0822956969 OCLC: Pittsburgh : Univ of Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh : 1999 |
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THE WICHITA POEMS ISBN: 0252004477 OCLC: Urbana : University of Illinois Press Urbana : 1975 |