William Simone Di Piero is an American poet, translator, essayist, and educator. He has published ten collections of poetry and five collections of essays in addition to his translations. In 2012 Di Piero received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for his lifetime achievement; in making the award, Christian Wiman noted, "He’s a great poet whose work is just beginning to get the wide audience it deserves."
Life He grew up in South Philadelphia in an Italian-American working-class neighborhood, attended St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia and received a master's degree from San Francisco State University in 1971.
He taught at Louisiana State University, and Northwestern University. In 1982, he joined Stanford University, where he is professor emeritus of English and on faculty in the prestigious Stegner Poetry Workshop. He is an art critic, and curated a photography exhibit of Jonathan Elderfield.
His work appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, and Triquarterly.
He lives in San Francisco.
Awards 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. 2008 California Book Award. Gold medal for Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems. 1998–2001 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund grant.Award and dates verified using the searchable database at 1996 Academy of American Poets Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Award. Book prize for This Strange Joy: Selected Poems of Sandro Penna. 1985 Guggenheim Fellowship. Ingram Merrill Fellowship. National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Works
Poetry collections The Complaints. Carnegie Mellon University Press; February 15, 2019 The Man on the Water. MadHat Press; December 15, 2016
Country of Survivors: Poems. Eric B. Rasmussen Publishing. 1974.
Journal contributions
Translations
Essays Fat: New and Uncollected Prose. Carnegie Mellon University Press; November 7, 2020 City Dog, Northwestern University Press, 2009.
Anthologies
References
Further reading Not available online.
Question and answer session. Chinese Apples: Poems by W.S. Di Piero August 27, 2008, The Leonard Lopate Show: WNYC W.S. Di Piero, August 17, 2001, Morning Edition: NPR
Online poetry
Links to several poems and articles by Di Piero.