Lucien Stryk
Lucien Stryk’s most recent collections of poetry are Where We Are: Selected Poems and Zen Translations (1997) and And Still Birds Sing: New and Collected Poems (1998). He has brought out two spoken albums of his poems on Folkway Records, a book of essays, The Awakened Self: Encounters with Zen, and, among other translations, The Dumpling Fields: Haiku of Issa and Cage of Fireflies: Modern Japanese Haiku. Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk (edited by Susan Porterfield) appeared in 1993. He is editor of World of the Buddha: An Introduction to Buddhist Literature and the anthropologies Heartland: Poets of the Midwest (I and II). With the late Takashi Ikemoto he translated The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane’s Bill and Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems of Shinkichi Takahashi. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Translation Center, and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. He has held a Fullbright travel/research grant and two visiting lectureships in Japan.
Among Stryk’s many books are:
And Still Birds Sing: New and Collected Poems, Swallow/Ohio Univ. Press,
1998
Where We Are: Selected Poems and Zen Translations, Skoob Books, London, 1997
The Awakened Self: Encounters with Zen, Kodansha America, 1995
Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Grove/Atlantic, 1995
Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk, ed. Susan Porterfield, Swallow/Ohio Univ. Press, 1993
Cage of Fireflies: Modern Japanese Haiku, Swallow/Ohio Univ. Press, 1993
The Gift of Great Poetry, Regnery Publishing, 1992
The Dumpling Field: Haiku of Issa, Swallow/ Ohio Univ. Press, 1991
Of Pen and Ink and Paper Scraps, Swallow/ Ohio Univ. Press, 1989
Bells of Lombardy, Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1986
Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems of Shinkichi Takahasi, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1986
On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, Penguin Books, 1985
Collected Poems 1953-1983, Swallow/ Ohio Univ. Press, 1984
World of the Buddha: An Introduction to Buddhist Literature,
Grove/Atlantic, 1982
Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane’s Bill, Grove/Atlantic, 1981
Zen: Poems, Prayers, Sermons, Anecdotes, Interviews, Swallow/ Ohio Univ. Press, 1981
The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, Penguin Books, 1977
Spoken cassettes: Zen Poems (FL9855) and Selected Poems (FL9768), Smithsonian/Folkway Records, 1991.
Video: The Poetry of Lucien Stryk, Brockport Writers Forum, 1971, 1976, 1984, 1994
Stryk’s poems, essays and translations have appeared in over 50 anthologies and textbooks, including Contemporary American Poetry, ed. A. Poulin, Jr., Houghton Mifflin. His work has also appeared in American Poetry Review, Encounter, Georgia Review, The Listener, London Magazine, The Nation, Partisan Review, Poetry, Poetry Review, Saturday Review, The Seventies, TriQuarterly, New Statesman & Society, and Poetry Ireland Review. Translations of his volumes of poetry have been published in Italy (Newton Compton Editori, Rome) and Sweden (Legenda, Stockholm), and individual poems have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Iranian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Arabic, German.
Stryk has read his poetry on National Public Radio and on BBC-TV and BBC Radio 3 (London) and at over 350 colleges and universities. He is the recipient of the following awards, grants and honors: Honorary Doctor of Letters, Northern Illinois University; Illinois Association of Teachers of English’s 1992 Illinois Author of the Year; Governor’s Award for the Arts (Illinois); Ford Foundation Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship; Rockefellar Foundation Fellowship; University Research Professorship, Northern Illinois University; Friends of Literature Robert F. Ferguson Memorial Award; twice recipient, Society of Midland Authors Poetry Award; first prize, Chicago Daily News’s New Poem Competition; Islands and Continents Translation Award; Isaac Rosenbaum Poetry Awards; National Translation Center Grant; New Poetry Series Award; Illinois Arts Council Artist’s Grant; twice recipient, Illinois Arts Council Literary Award; Asia Society Grant; Excellence in Teaching Award, Northern Illinois University; Fulbright Lectureship, Iran; Fulbright Travel/Research Grant, Japan; poetry worksheet collection, Lockwood Memorial Library, Univ. of Buffalo; manuscript collection, Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University.
Stryk studied at Indiana Univ., the Sorbonne, London Univ,. and the Univ. of Iowa. He has been interviewed in, among others, Chicago Review No. 88, 1973; American Poetry Review, Vol. 6/9 No. 4, 1977, Modern Poetry Studies X, No. 1, 1980; Loblolly No. 2, 1985; American Poetry Review, Vol. 19/No. 2, 1990; Rafters, Autumn 1996. He was twice a Visiting Lecturer in Japan (Niigata Univ. & Yamaguchi Univ.). Bibliography: Lucien Stryk: A Bibliography, Craig S. Abbott, AEB, Nos. 3 & 4, 1991.
