POET

Nick Flynn (1960 - )

BIOGRAPHY

Poet and memoirist Nick Flynn was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, on Boston’s South Shore, in 1960. His debut poetry collection, Some Ether (2000), won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, for which the judges’ statement read: “These poems establish their emotional authority through their very movement—their wayward, whispering music. At once reckless and demure, outrageous and delicate. . . .” Most of the poems in Some Ether focus on Flynn’s tumultuous family life and include a detached yet affecting look at childhood and trauma. Having written about his family in both poetry and prose, Flynn has said, “The way I write I don’t see much distinction between the two, although prose seems more suited to daylight, and poetry to night. I try to cook both down to something essential—by the end hopefully some balance between mystery and clarity remains.”

Flynn's forthcoming book is The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir of Bewilderment (2010), inspired in part by Abu Ghraib detainees. He teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.