BURT, John 1955-

PERSONAL: Born November 22, 1955, in Washington, DC; son of William C. (an attorney) and Margery (a clerk; maiden name, Davies) Burt. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Yale University, B.S., 1977, Ph.D., 1983. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Unitarian-Universalist. Hobbies and other interests: Computers.

ADDRESSES: Home—42 Mystic Lake Dr., Arlington, MA 02174-2320. Office—Department of English, MS 023, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254; fax: 781-736-2179. E-mail—burt@brandeis.edu.

CAREER: Writer. Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, professor of English, 1983–. Literary executor for the work of Robert Penn Warren.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, American Literature Association, Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ambassador Prize from English Speaking Union and Landry Prize, both for The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren.

WRITINGS:

The Way Down (poetry), Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1988.

Robert Penn Warren and American Idealism (criticism), Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1988.

Work without Hope (poetry), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1996.

(Compiler) The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1998.

(Editor) Selected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: John Burt once told CA: "I write narrative poetry, often in blank verse, often on historical subjects. It is my aim to reclaim for poetry some of the territory it has ceded to fiction. I have an interest in American history and politics, and much of my poetry reflects those interests. I have tried to make some sense of the meaning of freedom and of the dark events of this century. I wish always to write a poetry which even those who don't think of themselves as readers of poetry may nevertheless 'make something of.'"