Eric Greinke

American poet Eric Greinke, b. 1948, Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, Vietnam Era. He has a Masters Degree in Social Work from Grand Valley State University, in addition to undergraduate degrees in English and Psychology. Greinke has been active in the American small press since the late sixties. He has worked in the Mi... chigan Poets In The Schools Program, taught Creative Writing at Grand Rapids City School, and was the editor and founder of GVSUs national literary magazine Amaranthus (renamed The Grand Valley Review). Greinke attended poetry workshops during the 70s with Ted Berrigan, Paul Blackburn, Robert Bly, Gregory Corso, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Jerome Rothenberg, Jackson MacLow and Phillip Whalen, among others. In 1972 his poetry collection The Last Ballet was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 1975 Greinke was included in his first international anthology, For Neruda, For Chile (Walter Lowenfels, Ed., Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1975). As editor and publisher of Pilot Press Books from 1972-1977, he published many of the important poets of that period, including Robert Hayden, John Woods, Ben Tibbs, Herbert Woodward Martin, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Dudley Randall, Albert Drake and others. During the 80s and 90s, he stopped publishing his literary work to devote himself full-time to social work with emotionally and developmentally disabled children and adolescents. Greinke founded Presa Press in 2000 and has since published over seventy full length books by contemporary American poets such as John Amen, Alan Catlin, David Chorlton, Joan Colby, Kirby Congdon, Hugh Fox, Ruth Moon Kemper, Richard Kostelanetz, Donald Lev, Lyn Lifshin, Gerald Locklin, Glenna Luschei, Gary Metras, Lynne Savitt, Harry Smith, t. kilgore splake, Alison Stone, and A.D. Winans. His return to poetry was marked by the publication of his Selected Poems 1972-2005. In 2014 his poetry collection For The Living Dead New & Selected Poems was nominated for both the Pulitzer ...Read More