Katz, Joy 1963-

PERSONAL:

Born 1963, in Newark, NJ; married Rob Handel (a playwright). Education: Ohio State University, B.S.; Washington University, St. Louis, MO, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. Office—New School University, 66 W. 12th St., New York, NY 10011. E-mail—jbkatz@mindspring.com.

CAREER:

Poet. New School University, New York, NY, faculty member; has taught writing and literature at Washington University and Stanford University.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Crab Orchard Award, 2002, for Fabulae; Wallace Stegner fellowship, Stanford University; Nadja Aisenberg fellowship, MacDowell Colony.

WRITINGS:

Fabulae (poetry), Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 2002.

The Garden Room (poetry), Tupelo Press (Dorset, VT), 2006.

(Editor, with Kevin Prufer) Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems: An Anthology, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2007.

Contributor to the anthology The New Young American Poets, and to periodicals, including Parnassus, LIT, Margie, Hat, Indiana Review, Southwest Review, Antioch Review, Chelsea, Verse, Barrow Street, Fence, New York Times Book Review, Bomb, Conduit, and Village Voice. Art director for Parnassus: Poetry in Review; senior editor for Pleiades.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joy Katz turned to poetry as a career later in life, initially being trained as an industrial designer but ultimately earning a master of fine arts degree from Washington University. Katz, called a "gifted mythographer" by Blackbird Online contributor Susan Settlemyre Williams, is now a senior editor at Pleiades, a faculty member at the New School University in New York, and a frequent contributor to literary journals. Two collections of Katz's poetry have been published: Fabulae, mythical and spiritual poems about love and loss, and The Garden Room, a look at the sometimes magical and sometimes mundane influences of everyday household objects and rooms. Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman described Fabulae as a "smart, imaginative, and mesmerizing collection." Writing of The Garden Room, a contributor to Publishers Weekly commented: "Over the course of this subtle collection, Katz builds a quietly moving story about the complexities of love and domesticity."

Katz next collaborated with fellow Pleiades editor Keven Prufer on Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems: An Anthology. The collection features poems that are generally little-known or "overlooked," selected by dozens of modern American poets. Each poem is accompanied by a personal essay explaining the selection's impact or draw, a feature described by Janet St. John in a Booklist review as a "clever twist" achieving a "nobler outcome."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Poet, spring, 2002, review of Fabulae, p. 57.

Booklist, March 1, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of Fabulae, p. 1086; December 15, 2006, Janet St. John, review of Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems: An Anthology, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, November 20, 2006, review of The Garden Room, p. 40.

ONLINE

Blackbird Online,http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/ (April 28, 2007), Susan Settlemyre Williams, review of Fabulae.

Southern Illinois University Press,http://www.siu.edu/ (October 7, 2004), biography of Joy Katz.