Tonight at KGB: David Lehman + James Kimbrell

David Lehman is the author of many collections of poems, including Yeshiva Boys (Scriber, 2011), When a Woman Loves a Man (Scribner, 2005), Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man (with James Cummins, Soft Skull Press, 2005), and The Evening Sun (2002).   Among his books of non-fiction are A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Shocken Books, 2009) and The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Doubleday, 1998), which was named a "Book to Remember 1999" by the New York Public Library.  He edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2006), and is the series editor of The Best American Poetry.  He is on the core faculty of the graduate writing programs at the New School and New York University.   He lives in New York City and Ithaca, NY.  

James Kimbrell is the author of The Gatehouse Heaven (1998), which was chosen by poet Charles Wright for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande Books, and My Psychic (2006).  He and artist Yu Jung-yul co-translated the collection Three Poets of Modern Korea: Yi Sang, Hahm Dong-Seon, and Choi Young-Mi (2002).  His poems, reviews and translations have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Poetry, Field, Fence, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, The Boston Book Review, American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and The Bread Loaf Anthology of New American Poets (University Press of New England). Kimbrell's plaudits include a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship, a Ruth Lilly Prize, and a Whiting Writers’ Award.   Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he is currently director of the Graduate Writing program at Florida State University.