Carla Harryman

Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets.[1] She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.[2]

Life and work

She was born in Orange, California. Harryman earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1975, studying in the College of Creative Studies. She later completed a Master of Arts in Creative Arts Interdisciplinary Studies at San Francisco State University in 1978.[3][4][5]

Academic career

Harryman has served as Professor in the Department of English, Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University since 2008, where she has worked as tenured and tenure-track faculty.[6] Before joining Eastern Michigan University, she taught at Wayne State University from 1996 to 2008 as Lecturer and later Senior Lecturer in the Department of English.[7]

She has also held visiting and teaching appointments at numerous institutions, including Bard College as MFA Summer Faculty at the Milton Avery School of the Arts[8], University of Washington Bothell as Senior Consulting Artist in the MFA Program in Poetics[9], Ohio University as Visiting Writer, and Goddard College as MFA Writing Faculty. She also taught at Naropa Institute[10], University of California, San Diego, and the California College of Arts and Crafts.[11]

Alongside her academic work, Harryman has built an extensive literary career through publications in poetry, fiction, essays, and dramatic writing. Her notable books include Memory Play (1994)[12], There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn (1995)[13], Gardener of Stars (2001), Adorno’s Noise (2008)[14], W—/M— (2013), A Voice to Perform: One Opera/Two Plays (2020), and Cloud Cantata (2022). She is also known for collaborative projects such as The Grand Piano, a ten-volume collective autobiography with writers including Lyn Hejinian and Rae Armantrout.[15]

Her interdisciplinary work in poetry and performance has earned recognition through awards such as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award in Poetry (2004)[16], the National Performance Network principal artist award for Gardener of Stars (2016), and the Ronald C. Collins Distinguished Faculty in Creative Activity Award from Eastern Michigan University (2019).[11] She has also received residencies and grants from organizations including the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Headlands Center for the Arts.[17]

Publications

  • Percentage, 1979, Tuumba (Berkeley, CA)
  • Under the Bridge, 1980, This Press (Berkeley, CA)
  • Property, 1982, Tuumba (Berkeley, CA)
  • The Middle, 1983, Gaz Press (San Francisco, CA)
  • Vice, 1986, Potes and Poets (Hartford, CT)
  • Animal Instincts: Prose, Plays, Essays, 1989, This Press (Berkeley, CA)
  • In the Mode of, 1992, Zasterle (Tenerife, Spain)
  • Memory Play, 1994, O Books (Oakland, CA)
  • There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn, 1995, City Lights (San Francisco, CA)
  • The Words: After Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories and Jean-Paul Sartre, 1994, O Books (Oakland, CA)
  • Gardener of Stars, 2001, Atelos (Berkeley, CA)
  • Baby, 2005, Adventures in Poetry (New York, NY)
  • Tourjours L’epine Est Sous La Rose, 2006, Ikko (Paris, France) Translation of There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn. Translated by Martin Richet
  • Open Box (Improvisations), 2007, Belladonna Books, (Brooklyn, NY)
  • Lust for Life: On the Writing of Kathy Acker, 2006, Verso (New York, NY and London, England): co-edited with Amy Scholder and Avital Ronell.
  • Adorno's Noise, 2008, Essay Press (Ithaca, NY)
  • The Wide Road (with Lyn Hejinian), 2011, Belladonna Books (New York, NY)
  • W--/M--, 2013, SplitLevel Texts (Ann Arbor, MI)
  • Artifact of Hope, 2017, Ordinance Series, Kenning Editions (Chicago, IL)
  • L'impromptue de Hannah/Hannah Cut In, 2018. Translated by Abigail Lange, Joca Seria (Paris, France)
  • Sue in Berlin, 2018, "To" Series, PURH (Rouen, France)
  • Sue á Berlin, 2018. Translated by Sabine Huynh, "To" Series, PURH (Rouen, France)
  • A Voice to Perform, 2020, SplitLevel Texts (Alexandria, VA)

Personal life

Harryman is married to the poet Barrett Watten.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Poetry Reading by Carla Harryman | University of Chicago News". news.uchicago.edu. 2008-04-24. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  2. ^ "Carla Harryman / Jon Raskin: Scales for the Living Under Duress [Night 1]". The Lab. 2025-05-09. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  3. ^ "Interview with Michael McGee and Jacques Dubrot", Combo issue 9 (2001)
  4. ^ a b "An Interview with Carla Harryman", by Megan Simpson, Contemporary Literature issue 37, vol. 4 (Winter 1996)
  5. ^ "Interview (with Manuel Brito)", A Suite of Poetic Voices (Santa Brigada, Spain: Kadle Books, 1994)
  6. ^ "Carla Harryman in conversation with Redell Olsen, Saturday 3rd November – The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture – IMCC The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture". instituteformodern.co.uk. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  7. ^ "To Write Within Situations of Contradiction: An Introduction to the Cross-Genre Writings of Carla Harryman". pmc.iath.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  8. ^ Brossard, Olivier (2017-12-22). "Poets and Critics Symposium 2018.1 : Carla Harryman, Thursday 15 and Friday 16 February". A Collective History of North American Poetry and Poetics. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  9. ^ "Carla Harryman | FCA Grant Recipient". www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  10. ^ "MFA Class: Carla Harryman & Anne Waldman". archives.naropa.edu. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  11. ^ a b "Carla Harryman (34/50) | UCSB College of Creative Studies". ccs.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  12. ^ Harryman, Carla (1994). Memory play. Clover Drive, Calif: O Books. ISBN 978-1-882022-22-9.
  13. ^ Harryman, Carla (1995). There never was a rose without a thorn. San Francisco, Calif: City Lights Books. ISBN 978-0-87286-301-9.
  14. ^ Adams, Bob (2009-02-23). "Review: Adorno's Noise by Carla Harryman". MAKE Literary Productions, NFP. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  15. ^ "Allegorical Moments: Lyn Hejinian's Life in Writing". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2024-03-31. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  16. ^ "Grant Recipients". www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  17. ^ "Carla Harryman". www.emich.edu. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
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