Barrett Watten

About

American poet, founder of the Language School of poetry, and author of works such as Frame and Bad History. He served as editor of both Poetics Journal and This, two important publications of the Language Poetry movement.

Before Fame

He studied biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before receiving his MFA in creative writing from The Iowa Writers' Workshop and his PhD in English from the University of California-Berkeley.

Trivia

He and nine other Language Poets published the first volume of the innovative work, The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, in 2006.

Family Life

He married fellow poet Carla Harryman. The couple welcomed a son, Asa, in 1984.

Associated With

He was a literary contemporary of Heather McHugh, a fellow, California-born poet.