John Shoptaw

Title: 
Senior Continuing Lecturer
Specialties: 
19th-Century American
20th- and 21st-Century American
Creative Writing
Poetry
Biography: 

Keats:聽 "The poetry of earth is never dead."

For the past several years I've been writing聽and teaching ecopoetry and ecopoetics.听 In the spring of 2025, I'll be teaching an English 90 on Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics, and an English 190 research seminar on Emily Dickinson.

Read more about my new collection聽Near-Earth Object 颈苍听.听

Current Research: 

I'm writing聽a book of essays, provisionally called Impurities, with projected chapters on ecopoetics, climate poetry, animals, things, emotions, actions, and the future.听聽

Role: 
Lecturer

Books

Near-Earth Object

John Shoptaw
Poetry, 2024

Times Beach

John Shoptaw
Poetry, 2015

On the Outside Looking Out: John Ashbery's Poetry

John Shoptaw
Monograph, 1995

Selected Publications

"The Poetry of our Climate" (essay)聽 (July/August 2023).听

"Near-Earth Object" podcast discussion of poem (May 2023).

"Why Ecopoetry?"聽(essay)聽.

"Near-Earth Object" (with a ),聽"Least Concern," "For the Birds" and "The Tree in the Midst"聽.听 "The Tree in the Midst" is reprinted 颈苍听, eds. Jennifer Barber, Jessica Greenbaum, Fred Marchant(Grayson Books, 2022).听聽

"Whoa!" (long poem), :聽 A Journal of Humanities and the Classics (Spring/Summer 2019).听 "Whoa!" is聽reprinted, along with my essay on Ovid and the poem, in 聽eds.Giulia Sissa and Francesca Martelli聽(Bloomsbury Publishing, July 2023).

"A Tree's Shade Speaks of its Shadow" (poem), (May/June 2019).

"Pangolin Scales" (poem), (Manoa Journal, 2019).

"Round County Almanac" (poem), (Spring 2019).

"Blues Haiku" (2011).

"Ecovaluation" (essay),聽, eds. Robert von Hallberg and Robert Faggen (U of New Mexico Press, 2021).听聽

"" The Emily Dickinson Journal (2010).

"" Representations 86 (Spring 2004).

"" Poetics Today 21 (2000).

John Shoptaw Headshot

Contact

jshoptaw@berkeley.edu
Wheeler Hall, room 476

Fall 2025 Office Hours

By appointment, Wheeler 476.

Classes Taught

  • No classes fall 2025

Topics