About the Author

Richard St. John is the author of The Pure Inconstancy of Grace (published in 2005 by Truman State University Press, as first runner-up for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), Each Perfected Name (Truman State University Press, 2015), and Shrine (a long poem released as a chapbook in 2011). He enjoys connecting not only with university and literary audiences, but also with listeners new to poetry. St. John received degrees in English from Princeton University (B.A.) and the University of Virginia (M.A.) In 2002, he completed a mid-career Loeb Fellowship for independent study at Harvard University. A portion of his literary materials have been archived at University of Pittsburgh library system. He has worked professionally in the fields of community development and nonprofit management. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Kate. For more information, please visit his website: www.richardstjohnpoet.com.

Reviews

There is a gentleness to Richard St. John's new book [Each Perfected Name], and it permeates the thought, observation and expression of the poet, who is constantly noticing how one thing breathes into another. In these poems St. John's presence is everywhere, and he takes in the world with gratitude, attention, and a tender scrutiny that moves the reader into his or her own "trapped divine" where objects, people, ideas and reverence, jostle and settle into new relationships. St. John is a careful guide and his words trace the workings of an open heart. -Frank X. Gaspar, author of Late Rapturous
Metaphor without irony and metaphor without allusion, though both may be lurking vaguely in the background, abound in St. John's poems so that a richness of imagery ("among our holy oddities") assaults our senses, and we see with eyes not quite ordinarily ours. -Jim Barnes, former Oklahoma Poet Laureate & author of Sundown Explains Nothing: New and Selected Poems