Ben Lerner

Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the National Book Award, a Howard Foundation Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and he is currently a MacArthur Fellow. In 2011 he won the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie", making him the first American to receive this honor.^[1] Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016. ^[2]

Life and work

Lerner was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, which figures in each of his books of poetry. He is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School, where he participated in debate and forensics, winning the 1997 National Forensic League National Tournament in International Extemporaneous Speaking.^[3] At Brown University he earned a B.A. in political theory and an MFA in poetry.

Lerner was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of 52 sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures.^[4] In 2004, Library Journal named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry.

He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006. It was named a finalist for the National Book Award. Lerner's third poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.^[5][6]

Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, published in 2011,^[7] won the Believer Book Award.^[8] and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for first fiction and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize. Writing in The Guardian, Geoff Dyer described Leaving the Atocha Station as "a work so luminously original in style and form as to seem like a premonition, a comet from the future."^[9] Excerpts of Lerner's second novel, 10:04, won the Terry Southern Prize from The Paris Review.^[10] Writing in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Maggie Nelson called 10:04 a "near perfect piece of literature."^[11] His essays, art criticism, and literary criticism have appeared in Art in America, boundary 2, Frieze, Harper's, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New Yorker among many other publications.^[12]

In 2008, Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British scholarly publication.^[13] In 2016, he became the first poetry editor at ''Harper's''.^[14] He has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.^[15]

Lerner received a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship.^[16]

Lerner's mother is the psychologist Harriet Lerner.^[17]

Works

Poetry

• The Lichtenberg Figures. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press. 2004. ISBN 9781619320734. 
• Angle of Yaw. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press. 2006. ISBN 9781556592461. 
• Mean Free Path. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press. 2010. ISBN 9781619320741. 
• No Art. 2016.  Collection of previous three volumes.

Fiction

• Leaving the Atocha Station, Coffee House Press, 2011. ISBN 9781566892926
• 10:04, Faber and Faber, 2014. ISBN 978-0865478107^[18]

Nonfiction

The Hatred of Poetry. FSG Originals, 2016.

Awards

• 2003 – Hayden Carruth Award^[19]
• 2003–2004 – Fulbright Fellowship^[20]
• 2006 – Finalist, National Book Award^[21] for Angle of Yaw.
• 2006 – Finalist, Northern California Book Awards for Angle of Yaw^[22]
• 2007 – Kansas Notable Book for Angle of Yaw
• 2010–2011 – Howard Foundation Fellowship^[23]
• 2011 – Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie^[1]
• 2011 – Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Award for first fiction^[24]
• 2012 – Finalist, Young Lions Prize of the New York Public Library^[25]
• 2012 – The Believer Book Award^[8]
• 2012 – Finalist, William Saroyan International Prize for Writing^[26]
• 2012 – Finalist, PEN/Bingham Award^[27]
• 2013 – Finalist, James Tait Black Memorial Prize^[28]
• 2013 – Guggenheim Fellowship^[12]
• 2014 – Terry Southern Fiction Prize from The Paris Review^[10]
• 2014 – Finalist, Folio Prize^[29]
• 2015– Winner, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship

References

External links

• Lerner's page and the MacArthur Foundation
• Interview with Ariana Reines in Bomb Magazine
• Lerner's page at the Guggenheim Foundation
• Lerner's National Book Award page
• Lerner's page at Narrative magazine
• Interview with Lerner in The New Yorker
• Interview with Lerner in The Believer
• Interview with Lerner in Bookforum
• Interview with Lerner in The Huffington Post
• Audio of Lerner poetry reading
• My First Time Interview with Lerner by The Paris Review