Eric Baus

Education

• Ph.D, Literature and Creative Writing, University of Denver
• MFA, Creative Writing, University of Massachusetts
• B.A., English, Indiana University

Eric Baus is the author of five full-length books of poetry: The Tranquilized Tongue (City Lights, 2014); Scared Text, winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry (Colorado State University Press, 2011); Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009); The To Sound, winner of the Verse Prize (Wave Books, 2004); and How I Became a Hum (Octopus Books, 2019).

Eric’s poems, interviews, and essays have been anthologized in Open the Door: How to Excite Young People about Poetry (McSweeney’s), 60 Morning Walks: Serial Interviews with Contemporary Authors (Ugly Duckling Press), The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (Rescue Press), The Arcadia Project: North American Pastoral Poetry (Ahsahta Press), The Volta Book of Poets (Sidebrow), and elsewhere. 

Eric’s approach to writing and teaching poetry celebrates discovery and surprise. He is fascinated by writing that dismantles habitual patterns of understanding in order to make meaning and attend to sound in new ways. His areas of specialization include prose poetry, epistolary forms, the serial poem, and surrealism. Some of his favorite writers are Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, César Vallejo, Francis Ponge, and Aimé Césaire.