Rate My Professor David Wojahn

David Wojahn is Professor Emeritus of English in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he directed the MFA in Creative Writing program for 21 years until his retirement on May 30, 2024. He earned a BA in English from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona in 1980. Wojahn began his academic career in 1981, holding teaching positions at Indiana University, the University of Chicago, the University of Houston, the University of Alabama, and the University of New Orleans before joining VCU. A distinguished poet and essayist, he also serves on the program faculty of the low-residency MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poetry explores the intersections of personal history, culture, memory, and public events.

Wojahn's debut collection, Icehouse Lights (Yale University Press, 1982), received the Yale Series of Younger Poets award, selected by Richard Hugo, and the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Book Award. He is the author of nine poetry collections, including Glassworks (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), Mystery Train (1990), Late Empire (1994), The Falling Hour (1997), Spirit Cabinet (2002), Interrogation Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004 (2006, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry), World Tree (2011, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Poets' Prize, and the Library of Virginia Literary Award), and For the Scribe (2017, Library of Virginia Literary Award and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award). His essay collections include Strange Good Fortune (University of Arkansas Press, 2001), From the Valley of Making: Essays on the Craft of Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2015), and Secret Addressee: Essays on How Poetry Matters. Wojahn edited A Profile of Twentieth Century American Poetry (1991, co-editor with Jack Myers), The Only World (1995), and Collected Poems (2006) of Lynda Hull. Among his honors are the O.B. Hardison Poetry Prize (2007), fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, VCU's Outstanding Faculty Award (2009), and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Award. Through his teaching and writing, Wojahn elevated VCU's creative writing program to national prominence and mentored generations of poets.