James Richardson

Poet James Richardson was raised in Garden City, New York. He earned a BA at Princeton University and a PhD at the University of Virginia. Richardson’s poems and aphorisms weave paradox, humor, concision, and a nuanced understanding of human engagement. In a starred review of By the Numbers, a Publishers Weekly reviewer notes, “In his poems, Richardson speaks with a world-weary voice that is also at times cautiously optimistic, managing to view the world from intimately personal and omniscient vantage points at the same time.” Richardson’s numerous collections of poetry include During (2016), winner of the Poetry Society of America's Castagnola Prize,  National Book Award finalist By the Numbers (2010), National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Interglacial: New and Selected Poems and Aphorisms (2004), Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001), How Things Are (2000), As If (1992), Second Guesses (1984), and Reservations (1977). Richardson’s critical writings include Vanishing Lives: Tennyson, Rossetti, Swinburne and Yeats (1988), and Thomas Hardy: The Poetry of Necessity(1977). Winner of the 2011 Jackson Poetry Prize, his work has also been featured in numerous anthologies, including Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists (2007, edited by James Geary), American Religious Poems (2006, edited by Harold Bloom), and Great American Prose Poems: Poe to the Present (2003, edited by David Lehman).