President of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters
David Biespiel is widely recognized as one of the leading poets of his generation, a liberal commentator on national politics, and also one of the nation's experts in teaching writing. His teaching experience is innovative and vast: He has taught at every level of education, from a one-room schoolhouse to large university campuses, from public high schools to graduate seminars, from teaching poetics at Stanford University to developing national champions in the Olympic sport of diving, and he has lectured and spoken to audiences throughout the United States.
Looking to create an independent writing studio in 1999, David founded the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters as a haven for writers in Portland's historic Hawthorne district.
He is the author of numberous books, including five volumes of poetry -- Shattering Air, Pilgrims & Beggars, Wild Civility, The Book of Men and Women which was named Best Poetry of the Year by The Poetry Foundation and also received the Oregon Book Award, and Charming Gardeners. His nonfiction includes Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces, A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry, which earned David's second Oregon Book Award, and the memoir The Education of a Young Poet, which was named a Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers. He has been honored with a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature.
In addition to his work at the Attic Institute, he is Poet-in-Residence at Oregon State University and a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop.