Francesco Levato

Francesco Levato was born in Chicago, Illinois. He is a poet, a translator of Italian poetry, and an experimental filmmaker. He earned his MFA in poetry from New England College and is currently working on his PhD in English Studies and Poetry at Illinois State University. A former executive director of The Poetry Center of Chicago, Levato is the founder and director of the Chicago School of Poetics and currently serves as Cinépoetry Editor for Poetry International.

His first collection of poetry is Marginal State (Fractal Edge Press, 2006). His book-length documentary poem, War Rug (Plastique Press, 2009), was adapted into a poetry film that was awarded official selections from the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, Germany and the Potenza International Film Festival, and also featured at Anthology Film Archives in New York. His e-book, Endless, Beautiful, Exact (2011) was published by Argotist. His translations of Italian poet Tiziano Fratus, Creaturing, was published by Marick Press in 2010, as was his own collection of documentary poems, Elegy for Dead Languages. Variations on Want (2011), a poetry film based on his long poetic sequence of the same name, premiered at the Henry Miller Library in a collaborative performance with composer Philip Glass.