S.A. Stepanek
Encyclopedia
S.A. Stepanek is an American poet
. She graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop with an M.F.A. and from the University of Houston
with a Ph.D. She teaches at Wheaton College
.
She was on a panel at the 2007 Association of Writers & Writing Programs
. Stepanek won the 2005 National Poetry Series
award.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. She graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop with an M.F.A. and from the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
with a Ph.D. She teaches at Wheaton College
Wheaton College (Illinois)
Wheaton College is a private, evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago in the United States...
.
She was on a panel at the 2007 Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is a literary organization whose mission is "to foster literary talent and achievement, to advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing."-Members:AWP...
. Stepanek won the 2005 National Poetry Series
National Poetry Series
The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program.Every year since 1979 it has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry...
award.
Reviews
Three, Breathing is an ambitious, book-length poem, a Platonic reworking of Biblical language using a rosary of stanzas with prayer-like refrains. Often, the prayers proceed by invoking a category and its opposite soon after, suggesting the presence or absence of the Christian Trinity—or some other way to resolve the stalemate of logical paradox—and break through to the true object of our devotion.
Instead of lyric, S.A. Stepanek tackles spirituality head-on, charging at it like a bull running at a matador in a bullring. His book-length poem Three, Breathing (Wave Books) is a breathless, noisy, declamatory and self-indulgent work that insists on taking you along with it.
...Stepanek's artistry helps meld the gorgeous with the accidental or haphazard. Everything is divine, and everything is an enunciation that creates, the sweep of stanzas seem to say.