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Scott Cairns

Professor of English
Director, Creative Writing Program
Director, Center for the Literary Arts

office
: 226 Tate
phone: 573-882-0669
email: cairnss@missouri.edu
office hours: MTWR by appointment

Research and teaching areas:
modern and contemporary American
literature; poetics; creative writing

Poetry Foundation Bio

Scott Cairns

Scott Cairns teaches modern and contemporary American literature and creative writing. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Image, Spiritus, and Tiferet, and have been anthologized in Upholding Mystery (Oxford UP '96), Best Spiritual Writing (Harper Collins '98 and '00), and Best American Spiritual Writing (Houghton Mifflin, ‘04, ’05, and '06). His poetry collections include Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected (Paraclete Press, ‘06), Philokalia (Zoo Press '02), Recovered Body (Braziller '98), Figures for the Ghost (U Georgia P '94), The Translation of Babel (U of Georgia P '90), and The Theology of Doubt (Cleveland State UP '85). With W. Scott Olsen, he co-edited The Sacred Place (U of Utah P '96), an anthology of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His spiritual memoir, Short Trip to the Edge, (HarperSanFrancisco) and a collection of adaptations and translations, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press), both appeared in 2007. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006.

Education

  • PhD 1990, University of Utah
  • MFA, 1981, Bowling Green State University
  • MA, 1979, Hollins College
  • BA, 1977, Western Washington University

Selected Publications

Courses Taught

  • English 2000: Courses in English Studies: Modern American Poetry
  • English 2000: Courses in English Studies: Poetry in Translation/Poetry as Translation
  • English 2000: Frost, Stevens, Moore, and Bishop
  • English 2000: Midrashim as Generative Model
  • English 4530: Advanced Poetry Writing
  • English 8530: Advanced Writing of Poetry

Selected Awards

  • John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
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