School of Writing, Literature, and Film

David Biespiel is the Poet-in-Residence at Oregon St. University. 

He leads the graduate poetry workshop once a year with students enrolled in the graduate MFA program, works with students on completing their final thesis, and teaches undergraduate advanced and intermediate poetry workshops, as well as courses in world poetry, American poetry, poetic form and theory, and contemporary book criticism.

Biespiel is the author of six books of poetry, three books of nonfiction, and has edited two anthologies. His most recent book of poems is Republic Café, published in 2019. His memoir, The Education of a Young Poet, was selected a Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers. The Book of Men and Women was chosen for Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation. He's is a contributing writer at American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Kenyon Review, New England Review, New Republic, New York Times, Poetry, Poetry International, Parnassus, Sewanee Review, and Slate, among many other publications. Recognition for his writing includes a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, a Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing, a Lannan Fellowship, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, two Oregon Book Awards (in poetry and nonfiction), and he's twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award.

In 1999 he founded the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters. From 2000-2005 he was editor of Poetry Northwest. Since 2010, he has written the Poetry Wire column for The Rumpus. In addition to teaching at Oregon State University, he has taught at Stanford University, University of Maryland, George Washington University, Wake Forest University, the low-residency Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program, and at other institutions as a visiting writer.

He lives in Portland with his wife, the poet and essayist Wendy Willis.