Peter Filkins

Professor Peter Filkins

Richard B. Fisher Professor of Literature

Contact

Fisher Science & Academic Center

Academic Program Affiliation(s)

Languages and Literature, Literary Studies, Creative Writing, German Studies

Areas of Specialization

Creative Writing
Modern and Contemporary Poetry
World Literature
Translation
Postwar German Literature

Interests

Research Interests: Writing poetry, translating German poetry and prose, modern and contemporary literature

Teaching Interests: Creative writing, world literature, 20th-century American and British poetry, translation

Biography

MFA, Columbia University
BA, Williams College

Professor Filkins primary interest is writing poetry and he has published five volumes of original verse to date. He has also translated the poetry and prose of Ingeborg Bachmann, novels by H.G. Adler and Alois Hotschnig, and a critical work by Bernd Stiegler. His biography of H.G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds appeared in 2019 and a new book of poems, Water / Music, in 2021. He is currently at work on a biography of Ingeborg Bachmann, and his poems, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, including The New Republic, Poetry, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, Partisan Review, Paris Review, and the New York Times Book Review. Professor Filkins has also taught at Bard College's main campus, Williams College, Hiram College, and North Adams State College. He has taught at Simon's Rock since 1988.

Highlights

Awards & Fellowships

2023 Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to Vienna, Austria.
2022-2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.
2020 NEH Summer Stipend.
2015-2016 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
2014-2015 Fellowship, Leon Levy Center for Biography, CUNY Graduate Center.
2012, 2007, 2002, 1997 Fellowships to The MacDowell Colony.
2013 Co-winner, Sheila Motton Best Book Award for The View We're Granted, New England Poetry Club.
2012 Writer-in-Residence, James Merrill House, Stonington, CT.
2012 Marbach Fellowship, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach, Germany.
2011 DAAD Faculty Research Fellowship.
2009 New American Press Chapbook Award for Augustine's Vision.
2007 Stover Prize in Poetry, Southwest Review.
2007 Distinguished Translation Award for Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian Cultural Ministry.
2005 Berlin Prize Fellowship, American Academy in Berlin.
1998 Finalist Award in Poetry, Massachusetts Cultural Council.
1995 Outstanding Translation Award for Songs in Flight: The Collected poems of Ingeborg Bachmann, American Literary Translators Association.
1993 Fellowship to Millay Colony of the Arts.
1989 Fellowship to Yaddo Artists Colony.
1983-1984 Fulbright Grant to Vienna, Austria.

Publications

Poetry:

Water / Music. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2021.
The View We're Granted. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2012.
Augustine's Vision. Milwaukee: New American Press, 2010.
After Homer. New York: Geroge Braziller, 2002.
What She Knew. Washington DC: Orchises Press, 1998.
To The Eminent Hate Mongers. University of Massachusetts: The Common, 2016.
Seven Almonds. University of Massachusetts: The Common, 2016.
Mr. Kahn. University of Massachusetts: The Common, 2016.

Translation:

The Wall, by H.G. Adler. New York: Random House, 2014.
Traveling in Place, by Bernd Stiegler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Panorama, by H.G. Adler. New York: Random House, 2014.
The Journey, by H.G. Adler. New York: Random House, 2008.
Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (2nd expanded edition). Cambridge: Zephyr Press, 2006.
The Franza Case and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann, by Ingeborg Bachmann. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.
Leonardo's Hands, by Alois Hotschnig. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Songs in Flight: The Collected poems of Ingeborg Bachmann. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1994.

Biography:

- H.G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds. New York: Oxford UP, 2019.