David Baker

Jim Calder

David Baker, Ohio Poet

David Baker is author of twelve books of poetry, including Swift: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2019), which gathers work from all his books and includes significant new poems.  His Never-Ending Birds (Norton) won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award in 2011.  His six books of prose include Show Me Your Environment: Essays on PoetryPoets, and Poems (Michigan, 2014). Among his awards are prizes and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Mellon Foundation, and Society of Midland Authors. He holds the Thomas B. Fordham Chair at Denison University, in Granville, Ohio, and is Poetry Editor of The Kenyon Review.

My Ohio

David has lived in Ohio for more than thirty years, and his poetry springs directly out of his life and experiences here. These poems illuminate our villages and farms—from Lake Erie to the Ohio River—our big-city gardens, small-town neighborhoods, and family life. David is also one of the country’s leading eco-poets, devoted to the natural world—the woods, the fields, the backyards and creeks of our state, all the rich flora and fauna that live among us. Drawn from his eleven books of poems, David’s poetry readings are lively and warm. He’s eager to read his work and talk with you about the art of poetry, its important place in our lives and imaginations. See why Marilyn Hacker writes that David Baker “is the most expansive and moving poet to come out of the American Midwest since James Wright.”

My Ohio can be tailored to your time and event needs, from twenty or thirty minutes to a full hour. David can supplement a poetry reading with conversation about literary editing and publishing, teaching poetry and creative writing, or contemporary Ohio and American poetry.


TO SCHEDULE A PRESENTATION , PLEASE CONTACT:

David Baker
baker@denison.edu

Speaker Applications

If your organization would like to book a speaker, first contact the speaker to confirm program dates, times, and whether or not the program will be offered virtually.

After you have confirmed scheduling details, submit a speaker request form to Ohio Humanities at least six weeks before the presentation takes place. Upon approval, we’ll send you a program agreement packet and ask you to pay the appropriate application fee to Ohio Humanities. Groups are limited to three Speakers Bureau programs per year.

Speaker Request Form

Speaker Fee Structure

Non-profit organizations with an annual budget under $150,000 pay a fee of $50.00.

Non-profit organizations with an annual budget over $150,000 pay a fee of $250.00.

Schools (including colleges or universities) and corporate or private entities pay a fee of $400.00.

For any questions, please contact Program Officer Melvin Barnes at mbarnes@ohiohumanities.org.