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Thomas Festa

Ph.D., Columbia

Professor
Department: English
Office: SCB 151
Phone: (845) 257-2726
E-mail: festat@newpaltz.edu
Web Site: www.finishinglinepress.com/product/earthen-by-thomas-festa

Research/Creative Activity

I continue to pursue lifelong interests in poetry and poetics from antiquity to the present. Literary theory, intellectual history, and the history of the book remain important commitments of mine. More recent obsessions include ecocriticism, contemporary poetry, and theories of form. Current work involves essays and articles on poetry by James Merrill, W.S. Merwin, and others, a forthcoming poetry chapbook, Earthen (Finishing Line Press), and poems appearing in Bennington Review, Connecticut River Review, Stone Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.

Awards, Honors & Recognition

Milton Society of America, Irene Samuel Memorial Award, 2022
Liberal Arts and Sciences Excellence in Scholarship Award, SUNY New Paltz, 2013
Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Award for Best Teaching Edition, 2013
John Donne Society Award for Distinguished Publication, 2009
William Tyndale Prize, 2004

Publications

Selected Recent Articles:

"Issa and Ryokan in James Merrill's The Book of Ephraim." ANQ:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DSCDEUYQGVJTFB877UVF/full?target=10.1080/0895769X.2022.2103639

"Merwin's Ecopoetic Conservancy." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment:
https://academic.oup.com/isle/advance-article/doi/10.1093/isle/isaa200/6056672?guestAccessKey=ceb5f97e-0ee3-44ae-a6ed-12c3c1507d24

Review of Jorie Graham, Runaway. Lightwood Magazine 5 (Spring 2021):
https://lightwoodpress.com/2021/03/21/runaway-by-jorie-graham-book-review-by-thomas-festa/

"Milton's Sensuous Poetics: On the Material Texts of Paradise Lost," Milton Studies 59 (2017): 91-124:

"Milton and the Stations of the Crux," Milton Quarterly 50.4 (2016): 241-59

Books:

Earthen. Poetry chapbook. (Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, forthcoming).

Locating Milton: Places and Perspectives, co-ed. with David Ainsworth (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press / Liverpool University Press, 2021).
Scholarly Milton, co-ed. with Kevin J. Donovan (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press / Liverpool University Press, 2019)
Milton, Materialism, and Embodiment: One First Matter All, co-ed. with Kevin J. Donovan (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2017)
Early Modern Women on the Fall: An Anthology, co-ed. with Michelle M. Dowd (Tempe, AZ: MRTS, 2012)
The End of Learning: Milton and Education (NY and London: Routledge, 2006; paperback: 2014)