Starve Bio, Tony Trigilio

Tony Trigilio is the author of the poetry collection, The Lama's English Lessons (Three Candles Press, 2006); the chapbooks, With the Memory, Which is Enormous (Main Street Rag Press, 2009) and Make a Joke and I Will Sigh and You Will Laugh and I Will Cry (e-chap, Scantily Clad Press, 2008); and two books of criticism, Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007) and "Strange Prophecies Anew" (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000). He also is co-editor, with Tim Prchal, of the anthology, Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930 (Rutgers University Press).

His poems have been anthologized in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab, 2006); Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World (Three Candles, 2006), America Zen (Bottom Dog, 2004), a collection of American Buddhist poets, and A Gathering of Poets, a volume commemorating the students killed at Kent State University and Jackson State University (Kent State University Press).

He has published critical essays in Reconstructing the Beats (ed. Jennie Skerl; Palgrave/ MacMillan, 2004) and Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation (ed. Ronna Johnson and Nancy Grace; Rutgers University Press, 2002). Tony's articles and book reviews also have appeared in journals such as American Literature, Another Chicago Magazine, Boston Review, Milk magazine, Modern Language Studies, and Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. His creative nonfiction essays appeared regularly in the Journal of the Cosmic Baseball Association.

Tony plays percussion and banjo, and his performances and recordings have included voice sampling collage and spoken word. He toured as a member of Drumming On Glass.

He holds a Ph.D. in English from Northeastern University in Boston. While living in Boston, Tony edited Lotus Arrow, the newsletter of the Kurukulla Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies, and was one of the founding members of the Fenway Skills Exchange, a grass-roots alternative economic system for the Fenway neighborhood.

A recipient of a 2009 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, he has taught since 1999 at Columbia College Chicago, where he also serves as associate chairperson of the English Department. Tony co-edits (with Lisa Fishman, Arielle Greenberg, and David Trinidad) the poetry magazine Court Green. He also has served as a Visiting Faculty member in the July Program at Bennington College. His Columbia College Chicago courses can be found at starve.org/teaching/classes.html.