David Shapiro has written over twenty volumes of poetry and prose, including the first book on John Ashbery, the first book on Jim Dine’s painting, the first book on Jasper Johns’ drawings (the last two from Abrams) and the first study of Piet Mondrian’s much tabooed flower studies. He has translated books from French and Spanish and recently edited a book on aesthetics: Uncontrollable Beauty. Born in l947, David received his degrees from Columbia and Cambridge Universities, but before he was fifteen he had put together many privately printed volumes of poetry. At fifteen he met Frank O’Hara, corresponded with John Ashbery, and was collaborating with Kenneth Koch and many painters of the so-called New York School. A tenured art historian at William Paterson University, Shapiro has won National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, been nominated for a National Book Award, and been the recipient of numerous grants for his work. Recent books of poetry include A Burning Interior (Overlook Press, 2002) and New and Selected Poems (1965-2006) (Overlook Press, 2007).

Recorded Thursday, September 27, 2007 at University of Chicago.