Curriculum Vitae

ROBERT MORGAN
1608 Hanshaw Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
E-mail: rrm4@cornell.edu
Website: www.robert-morgan.com

Born:
October 3, 1944 Hendersonvlle, NC

Education:
MFA, UNC Greensboro, 1968
BA in English, UNC Chapel Hill, 1965

Employment:
Kappa Alpha Professor of English, Cornell University 1992-2022
Rivers-Coffey Distinguished Visiting Writer, Appalachian State University, Fall 2007
Whichard Professor, East Carolina University, Spring 2005
Visiting Professor, Duke University, Spring 2004
Writer-in-Residence, Furman University, Spring 2004
Blackburn Visiting Writer, Duke University, Spring 2003
Visiting Writer, Furman University, Winter 2003
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Appalachian State University, Fall 2000
McGee Visiting Writer, Davidson College, Spring 1998
Professor of English, Cornell University, 1984-92
Associate Professor of English, Cornell University, 1978-84
Assistant Professor of English, Cornell University, 1973-78
Lecturer in English, Cornell University, 1971-73
Self-employed writer, farmer, housepainter, 1969-71
Instructor in English, Salem College, 1968-69
Teaching Assistant, UNC-Greensboro, 1967-68

Publications:
In the Snowbird Mountains and Other Stories. Press 53. May, 2023.
“Cowbell.” (poem) The Atlantic. April, 2021.
“Mandolin.” (poem) Rattle. Spring, 2021.
“Squirrel Hill,” “Harmonia,” “Pangaea,” “New Dust.” (poems) Appalachian Places. Fall, 2021.
“Healing.” (memoir) From the Finger Lakes. Cayuga Lake Press. Fall 2022.
“The Lost Lead Mine of the Cherokees.” (story) By the River. McFarland Publishers. 2021.
“Cairn,” “The Clouds Today,” “Bone Song.” (poems) Cutleaf. Fall, 2021.
“Incense Road,” “Thumbprint,” “1948,” “Red Letters,” (poems) Cloudbank 2020.
“Watching Clouds,” “Purple Rags,” “Windchime,” Terrain.org. Fall, 2020.
“Because He’d Lived So Long a Bachelor,” ‘Cracked,” “The Service of Forever.” (poems) Four, Fall 2019.
“The Oratorio That Was Time.” (poem) Cloudbank. Fall, 2019.
“Hog Wallow” (poem) Southern Poetry Review, Spring 2019.
“SPCA” (story) Epoch, Spring 2019
“Prisoners of War” (story) Chapbook. Printed by Cornell for the Morganfest, October, 2019.
“The Southern Writer in Exile.” (Interview) North Carolina Literary Review. Winter 2019.
The Oratorio That Was Time. Audubon Terrace Press. 2022.
“The Mower,” (poem). Appalachian Reckoning. West Virginia University Press. 2019.
“SPCA” (story) Epoch. Spring 2019.
“Echo” (poem) The Atlantic. December, 2018.
“A Little Ado About Something,” “Adoration,” “Covert,” (poems) Pisgah Review. Spring
2018.
Seven Poems. Terroir.org. Fall 2018.
“Immune,” “Thaw,” “Tooth Marks,” (poems) Below Freezing. New Mexico University Press. 2018.
“Singing to Make Butter Come.” (poem) Vinegar and Char. University of Georgia Press. 2018.
“Music of the Spheres,” (poem) What Light (Playbill). Lincoln Center. October 21, 2018.
“The Poetry of Place/ The Place of Poetry.” (Essay). Epoch. Vol. 66. No. 2
“Echo,” (Poem). The Atlantic. October 2018.
“Syphon Spring.” (Poem) The Atlantic. April 2018.
“Poor Relation.” (Poem) The Yale Review. April 2018.
“Carillonneur,” “Baptism.” (Poems) Cloudbank. Spring 2018.
“The Sadness of Winter Fields.” (Poem) Grub Street, Spring 2018.
“Window.” (Poem, reprinted). The Best American Poems 2018.
Chasing the North Star. (Paperback) Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2017
As Rain Turns to Snow. (Stories). Broadstone Books. 2017.
“The Jaguar.” (Story) Roanoke Review. Spring 2017.
“Scribbler,” “Urnfield,” “Resourceful.” (Poems) NCLR. 2017.
“Twelve Poems with Interview.” Appalachian Journal. Spring 2017.
“Krummholtz,” “Window.” (Poems) Southern Poetry Review. Fall 2016.
“Yellow,” “Purple Asters.” (Poems reprinted) From the Finger Lakes. Fall 2016.
“Maple Gall,” “Algae,” “Aspen Song,” “Left Behind.” (Poem reprinted) The World is Charged. Clemson University Press. 2016.
“Foreword.” for The Family of Earth. UNC Press. 2016.
“Mountains, Machines, and Memory” (essay) Epoch. Winter 2016.
Chasing the North Star. (novel) Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2016.
“Little Willie and the Blue Jacket.” (essay) The Algonquin Reader. Spring 2016.
“Ancient Talk of Mountains.” (poem, reprinted) Magic Again: Selected Poems on Thomas Wolfe. The Thomas Wolfe Society. 2016.
“Zircon.” (poem, broadcast) Southern Spaces. March 2016.
“JDM: Poet of the Holston.” (essay) Jeff Daniel Marion: Poet of the Holston. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press. 2016.
“Bessie.” (play) Carolina Mountain Literary Anthology. Fall 2015.
Dark Energy: Poems. Penguin. 2015.
Mockingbird: A Poem. Broadstone Books. 2014.
At the Edge of the Orchard Country. (Reprinted) Broadstone Books. 2014.
Sigodlin. (Reprinted) Broadstone Books. 2014.
The Road From Gap Creek. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2013.
Lions of the West. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2011
Terroir: Poems. Penguin. 2011.
October Crossing: Poems. Broadstone Books. 2009.
Boone: A Biography. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2007.
The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems. LSU Press. 2004.
Brave Enemies. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2003.
This Rock. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 2001.
Topsoil Road: Poems. LSU Press. 2000.
The Balm of Gilead Tree and Other Stories. Gnomon Press. 1999.
Gap Creek. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 1999.
The Hinterlands. Paperback. Blair Publishers. 1999.
The Truest Pleasure. Paperback. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 1998.
Wild Peavines: New Poems. Gnomon Press. 1996.
The Truest Pleasure. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 1995.
The Hinterlands. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 1994.
Good Measure: Essays and Interviews on Poetry. LSU Press. 1993.
The Mountains Won’t Remember Us. Peachtree Publishers. 1992.
Green River: New and Selected Poems. Wesleyan University Press. 1991.
Sigodlin: Poems. Wesleyan University Press. 1990.
The Blue Valleys: Stories. Peachtree Publishers. 1989.
At the Edge of the Orchard Country. Peachtree Publishers. 1987.
Bronze Age. Iron Mountain Press. 1981.
Groundwork. Gnomon Press. 1979.
Trunk & Thicket. L’Epervier Press. 1978.
Land Diving. LSU Press. 1976.
Red Owl. W.W. Norton. 1972.
The Voice in the Crosshairs. Angelfish Press. 1971.
Zirconia Poems. Lillabulero Press. 1969.

Poems have appeared in such magazines as Poetry, Paris Review, Antaeus, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Georgia Review, The Southern Review, Appalachian Heritage, and in many anthologies, including A Geography of Poets, The Generation of 2000, The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, Strong Measures, Western Wind, The Made Thing, Bedford Introduction to Literature, Bedford Introduction to Poetry, Approaching Poetry, and The Book of Luminous Things.

Essays and articles on poetry have been published in Poetry Pilot, Epoch, Parnassus, The Nation, Bluefish, American Poetry Review. Short stories in The Southern Review, Now & Then, Epoch, Story, Greensboro Review, Pembroke Magazine, Appalachian Heritage, Negative Capability, St. Andrews Review and many other magazines.

Many craft interviews have been broadcast on public radio and television. Both fiction and poetry have been published in other languages, including German, Dutch, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese.

Secondary Work

Godwin, Rebecca. Community Across Time: Robert Morgan's Words for Home. West Virginia University Press. May, 2023.

West, Robert and Jesse Graves (editors). Robert Morgan: Essays on His Life and Work. McFarland Publishers. 2022.

Wilhelm, Randall and Jesse Graves (editors). Conversations with Robert Morgan. University Press of Mississippi. 2019.

Graves, Jesse. “The More Mysterious: An Interview with Robert Morgan.” The Georgia Review (Spring 2012) 65-87.

Bherwani, Bhisham. “The Elegiac in Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” The Yale Review. Winter 2017.

Reviews of Dark Energy in Appalachian Journal, North Carolina Literary Review, Cloudbank, Asheville Poetry Review.

Many reviews of Chasing the North Star.

Godwin, Rebecca. “Thomas Wolfe and Robert Morgan: Influence and Correspondences.” The Thomas Wolfe Review. Vol. 38, Nos. 1 & 2. 2014. 54-70.

Godwin, Rebecca. “After the Fighting the Scars Remain.” An Interview with Robert Morgan on His War Literature.” NCLR (2014) 6-17.

Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. “Robert Morgan’s Peripheral Vision: ‘the point beside the point’ in The Hinterlands.” NCLR (2010) 30-43.

Booker-Canfield, Suzanne. “The Rush Toward the Horizon: The Geography of Land and Language in Robert Morgan’s Recent Poetry.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 36-44.

Denham, Robert D. “Service is Also Praise: Recognition in Robert Morgan’s The Truest Pleasure.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 129-141.

Drewitz-Crockett, Nicole. “Authority, Details, and Intimacy: Southern Appalachian Women in Robert Morgan’s Family Novels.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 117-128.

Eads, Martha Greene. “Feminist Forgiveness in Robert Morgan’s ‘The Trace’.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 151-161.

Gilbert, Roger. “Sea and Mountains, Motion and Measure: The Complementary Poetics of A. R. Ammons and Robert Morgan.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 71-90.

Graves, Jesse. “Editor’s Introduction.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 6-11.

Grimes, Larry. “Echoes and Influences: A Comparative Study of Short Fiction by Ernest
Hemingway and Robert Morgan.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 98-116.

Harmon, William. “Robert Morgan’s ‘Mockingbird’ in Company.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 61-70.

Johnson, Don. “Robert Morgan’s Alchemy.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 45-52.

Lang, John. “Robert Morgan: ‘Mountains Speak in Tongues’.” Six Poets of the Mountain South. LSU Press (2010) 73-98.

Liotta, P. H. “Robert Morgan: Genius as Music.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 182-188.

Marion, Jeff Daniel. “Specimen Days: Looking Back (with photographs).” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 162-178.

Rash, Tom. “The Poetry of Robert Morgan: An Appreciation.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 53-60.

West, Robert. “‘Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple’: Robert Morgan, Philip Larkin and the Emptiness of Sacred Space.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 91-97.

Wilhelm, Randall Shawn. “Bricking the Text: The Builder in Robert Morgan’s Mountain
World.” Southern Quarterly (Spring 2010) 142-150.

Lang, John. “Coming Out From Under Calvinism: Religious Motifs in Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” In An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature. Ohio University Press (2005) 30-43.

Banks, Russell. “Bob Morgan at Chapel Hill.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 82-84.

Booker-Canfield, Suzanne. “Middle Sea: Robert Morgan and a New American Romanticism.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 71-76.

Buchanan, Harriette. “Changing Contexts, Changing Textures: Robert Morgan’s ‘Murals’ Over its Publication History.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 28-36.

Godwin (Smith), Rebecca. “The Elemental in The Truest Pleasure and Gap Creek: Nature as Physical Force and Spiritual Metaphor.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 37-46.

Lang, John. “Speaking Charmed Syllables: the Two-Fold Vision of Topsoil Road.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 16-21.

Murrell, Duncan. “Robert Morgan’s Speech: Facing Down Fear.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 22-27.

Smith, Newton. ‘Going Back to the Mountains from Topsoil Road: A Retrospective Look at Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 55-64.

Villiers, Regina. “Women in Robert Morgan’s Short Fiction: A Study of The Blue Valleys and The Mountains Won’t Remember Us.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 65-70.
Waage, Fred. “In the Non-Euclidean Mountains of Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 47-54.

West, Robert. “A Study in Sharpening Contrasts: Robert Morgan and the Distinction Between Prose and Poetry.” Pembroke Magazine 35 (2003) 77-81.

Conway, Cecelia. “Robert Morgan’s Mountain Voice and Lucid Prose.” Appalachian Journal (Fall/Winter 2002) 180-199.

Lang, John. “Coming Out From Under Calvinism: Religious Motifs in Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” Shenandoah (Fall 1992).

Jones, Roger E. “Robert Morgan 1944-“ Contemporary Authors DLB. Gale Research. Vol. 120. (1992) 213-219.

“Robert Morgan 1944-“ Contemporary Authors: Autobiographical Series. Gale Research. Vol. 20. (1992) 257-289.

McFee, Michael. ‘The Witness of Many Writing: Robert Morgan’s Poetry Career.” The Iron Mountain Review (Spring 1990) 17-23.

Marion, Stephen. “Morgan’s Travels.” The Iron Mountain Review (Spring 1990) 24-25.

Williams, Mary C. “The Toolshed, the Feed Room, and the Potato Hole: Places in Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” The Iron Mountain Review (Spring 1990) 26-30.

Liotta, P. H. “Pieces of the Morgenland: The Recent Achievements in Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” Southern Literary Journal (Spring 1990) 1-9.

Kooser, Ted. “At the Edge of the Orchard Country.” Prairie Schooner (Summer 1989) 126-129.

Quillen, Rita. Looking For Native Ground: Contemporary Appalachian Poetry. Appalachian Consortium Press (1989) 49-62.

Schultz, Robert. “Recovering Pieces of the Morgenland.” Virginia Quarterly Review 64 (Winter 1988) 176-188.

Williams, Mary C. “Place in Poetry: Preserving and Deconstructing Southern Mythology.” Pembroke Magazine 20 (1988) 124-131).

Booker, Suzanne. “A Conversation With Robert Morgan.” Carolina Quarterly (Spring 1985) 13-22.

Marion, Stephen. “Gleaning the Unsayable: the Terrain of Vision in Poems by Robert Morgan, Fred Chappell, and Jim Wayne Miller.” Mossy Creek Journal 9 (1985) 25-33.

Wright, Stuart. “Robert Morgan: A Bibliographic Chronicle, 1963-81.” Bulletin of Bibliography 39 (September 1982) 121-131.

Miller, Jim Wayne. “Groundwork.” McGill Literary Annual (1981) 388-390.

Harmon, William. “Robert Morgan’s Pelagian Georgics: Twelve Essays.” Parnassus (Fall/Winter 1981) 5-30.

Chappell, Fred. “Double Language: Three Appalachian Poets.” Appalachian Journal 8 (Autumn 1980) 49-53.

Matthews, William. “Some Notes on Robert Morgan’s Poetry.” The Small Farm 4/5 (Spring 1977) 88-92.

Bourne, Louis. “On Metaphor and Its Use in the Poetry of Robert Morgan.” The Small Farm 3 (Spring 1976) 63-79.

Chappell, Fred. “A Prospect Newly Necessary.” The Small Farm 3 (Spring 1976) 49-53.

Merod, J. B. “Robert Morgan’s ‘Wisdom-Lighted Islands’.” The Small Farm 3 (Spring 1976) 54-62.

Grants and Awards:
The Southern Book Award for Historical Fiction for Chasing the North Star
The 2014 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award.
The East Tennessee Civil War Alliance John Cullum Drama Prize 2014.
Billy Walker Award, University of South Carolina 2013.
The DAR History Award Medal 2013.
The 2015 Southern Book Award for Nonfiction
Hobson Award, Chowan University 2011.
Inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, 2010.
Thomas Wolfe Prize, UNC Chapel Hill, 2008.
Kentucky Book Award for Boone. 2008.
R. Hunt Parker Award, North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, 2007.
Academy Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and letters, 2007.
Honorary Doctor of Letters, UNC Chapel Hill, 2006.
Inducted into Fellowship of Southern Writers 2003.
Gap Creek received the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, and Appalachian Book of the Year Award. It was selected for the Oprah Book Club and became a New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year. 2000.
“The Balm of Gilead Tree” selected for O. Henry Awards, 1996.
The Truest Pleasure selected as New York Times Notable Book 1995.
The Truest Pleasure first runner-up for the Southern Book Critics Circle award
The Truest Pleasure listed by Publisher’s Weekly as Outstanding Book of 1995.
Appalachian Heritage Award, Shepherd University, 2003.
Fellow, Cornell Society for the Humanities, Fall 1992.
North Carolina Award in Literature 1991.
James G. Hanes Poetry Prize from Fellowship of Southern Writers 1991

The Blue Valleys nominated for First Fiction Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Fellowship at Rockefeller Bellagio Conference Center 1989.
Amon Liner Prize, Greensboro Review 1989.
Jacaranda Review Fiction Prize 1988.
Guggenheim Fellowship 1988-89.
Hawthorden Fellow in Poetry, International Writers Retreat. Hawthornden Castle, Scotland 1986.
New York Foundation For the Arts Fellowship. 1986.
Eunice Tietjens Prize. Poetry. 1979.
Southern Poetry Review Prize. 1975.
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, 1968, 1974, 1982, 1987.

Courses taught at Cornell:
Introductory Creative Writing, poetry workshops, narrative writing workshops, senior honors seminar in creative writing, MFA workshops, undergraduate and graduate courses in 19th century American poetry, Whitman and Dickinson, Emerson and Poe, Frost, Eliot and Stevens, contemporary British and American poetry, American short story, forms of poetry, autobiography.

Poetry and fiction readings at many colleges and universities, libraries, and festivals, including UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State University, Wells, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Asheville, Carson-Newman, Louisiana State, Washington University, SUNY Brockport, Wesleyan, Furman, Emory and Henry, SUNY-Binghamton, Duke, Hawaii, Stanford, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, Oxford University, American Academy in Rome, Bellagio Conference Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Guggenheim Museum, the New School, Poetry Society of America, and hundreds of libraries, literary festivals, and bookstores.
Sept. 1, 2016. Introductions. Jim McConkey Birthday Celebration. Cornell.
Oct. 14, 2016. Interview on Boone. History Channel.
Nov. 1, 2016. Reading. Broome County Arts Council
Nov. 6, 2016. Poetry reading. Tompkins County Public Library.
April 10, 2016. Reading. Quail Ridge Books. Raleigh.
April 11, 2017. Reading. Hub City Bookshop. Spartanburg, SC.
April 13, 2017. Reading. Park Road Books. Charlotte.
April 14, 2017. Country Bookshop. Southern Pines, NC.
April 19, 2017. Malaprop’s Books. Asheville.
April 20, 2017. Fiction Addiction. Greenville, SC.
April 22, 2017. Reading. Concord, NC.
April 25, 2017. Reading. Henderson County, NC Public Library.
April 27, 2017. Panel. Henderson County Literacy Program.
May 18-21, 2017. Looking Glass Rock Writers Conference. Brevard, NC.
May 21, 2017. Reading. Abingdon Public Library. VA.
July 5-12, 2017. Residency, reading, and lecture at Murray State University
July 13, 2017. Reading. Blowing Rock, NC.
August 1, 2017. Laughing Heart Literary Festival.
March 7, 2018. Interview on History Channel
March 22, 1918. Reading and workshop at Lee University, Cleveland, TN.
May 6, 2018. Hall of Fame ceremony at Hendersonville, North Carolina
September 27, 2018. Reading and workshop at Appalachian State University
September 28, 2018. Reading at Carolina Village, Hendersonville, NC
October 11, 2018. Introduction for Alice McDermott, Cornell
November 8, 2018. Introduction for Freund Prize Poets, Cornell
February 7, 2019. Cleaveland reading, Cornell
March 13 2019. Reading, Hendersonville, NC
March 17, 2019, Reading, Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville, NC
October 3, 2019. Reading, The Morganfest. Cornell
October 30, 2020. Poetry reading, by Zoom for Press53.
November, 2020. Fiction reading by Zoom for Cornell Creative Writing
Program.
2021. Podcasts and Zoom readings and interviews.
August 13,2015. Reading. Givens Estate. Asheville, North Carolina.
October 9, 2015. Poetry reading. Southern Festival of Books. Nashville.
November 19, 2015. Lecture on Harper Lee. Cornell University.
March 5, 2016. Lecture. UNC-Asheville.
April 7, 2016. Lecture. UT-Knoxville.
April 9, 2016. Reading. Heritage Museum, Hendersonville, NC.
April 11-15, 2016. Residency. UT-Chattanooga.
April 16, 2016. NPR Interview. Asheville.
April 17, 2016. Reading. Malaprops Bookstore. Asheville.
April 18, 2016. Reading. Park Road Books. Charlotte.
April 19,2016. Reading. Main Street Books. Davidson, NC
April 20, 2016. Reading. Georgia Center for the Book. Atlanta.
April 21, 2016. Reading. Flyleaf Books. Chapel Hill, NC
May 5, 2016. Reading. Tompkins County Public Library. Ithaca, NY

Service at Cornell:
Acting Chair of English, 1985, 1986-87, 1988.
Director of Undergraduate Studies 1980-81, 1984-85.
Curriculum Committee, 1975-78, Chair 1980-81, 84-85.
Editor for Epoch, 1971-75.
Creative Writing Committee, 1971-, Chair 1982, 1996.

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