Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University (Connecticut). The Press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist.^[1][2] Founded (in its present form) in 1957, the Press publishes books of poetry and books on music, dance and performance, American Studies, and film.^[2][3][4][5]

The Press is notable among prestigious American academic presses for its poetry series, which publishes both established poets and new ones.^[6][7] The Press has released more than 250 titles in its poetry series and has garnered, in that series alone, among other awards, four Pulitzer Prizes, a Bollingen Prize, three National Book Awards, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award.^[2][3][6][8] According to The New York Times, university presses with bigger endowments, with financial backing from the state, or with large graduate programs do not enjoy the same status in the field of poetry that the Wesleyan University Press enjoys, nor have they won a comparable array of prizes in poetry.^[9] The Press also has garnered Pulitzer Prizes, American Book Awards, and other awards in its other series.^[10]

The Press's poetry series was nurtured in its infancy by noted poet Richard Wilbur, then an English professor at the University.^[6][11][12] In the 1960s, T.S. Eliot served as a special editorial consultant to the Press. In that capacity, Eliot specialized in, among other things, seeking out promising new poets in England and Europe.^[6][13]

Wesleyan is the smallest college or university in the nation to have its own press, and the Wesleyan University Press has the second-oldest poetry series in the nation.^[2][14] Approximately 25 books are published each year.

Authors and poets published by the Press include John Cage, James Dickey, Paul Horgan, David Ignatow, Yusef Komunyakaa, Louis Simpson, Richard Slotkin, James Tate, Jean Valentine, Charles Wright, James Wright, and Jack Spicer, among others.

Wesleyan University Press titles are distributed by the University Press of New England.

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[edit] External links

• Wesleyan University Press

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