W.S. Di Piero
reads from Nitro Nights (Copper Canyon Press, $15).
W.S. Di Piero marries a streetwise, working-class sensibility to an intellectual rigor and precise language in poems that stare down depression, failed love, and urban nightlife. In a fast-paced, half-cracked/half-sane style reminiscent of bebop solos, Di Piero forges masterful poems that "keep it close, loose, and sweaty," and restore life's intensity while showing where real hope might be found.
On April 17, 2012, The Poetry Foundation announced Di Piero winner of the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize which honors a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.
W.S. Di Piero is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, essays on culture and personal experience, and translations from Italian and and Greek. His previous book of poems is Chinese Apples. Other recent publications include When Can I See You Again? New Art Writings, and Night of Shooting Stars: The Selected Poems of Leonardo Sinisgalli. He is a frequent contributor to The Threepenny Review . His other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill foundations, a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund Award, and the first Raiziss/de Palchi Book Prize for Italian translation from the Academy of American Poets. Professor of English at Stanford, Di Piero lives in San Francisco.
