Career
He was a Queens National Scholar and Associate Professor of American Literature at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario. His poetry has appeared in The Cortland Review,1 The Paris Review,2 Blip Magazine, The Beloit Journal, Blackwarrior Review, Court Green, Crazyhorse, Jubilat, Margie, Pleiades. He has been nominated twice for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.
His widely reviewed book Queer Optimism: Lyric Personhood and Other Felicitous Persuasions (University of Minnesota Press, 2008). offers new readings of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and Jack Spicer.
He is currently at work on a new book, on “The Aesthetics of Disability: American Literature and Figurative Contingency.” He received his Doctor of Philosophy in English from The Johns Hopkins University. He currently teaches at the University of Houston.
“Is the Rectangle a Grave? Bersani, Rothko, and the Dream of Disability,” Collected Essays on Leo Bersani, educated Mikko Tukkanen (State University of New York Press, forthcoming).
“Pierre and the Non-Transparencies of Figuration,” ELH (2010).
“Subjunctivity,” Postmodern Culture 18.3 (2008). “Queer Optimism,” Postmodern Culture 16.3 (2006). “Stasis & Verve: Henry James and the Fictions of Patience,” The Henry James Review 27.1 (2006).
