Pankey, Eric, 1959-

Eric Pankey was born on February 25, 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of James A. and Frances Pankey (nee Pierce) both of whom were accountants. In 1985 he married Jennifer Atkinson a writer whose papers are also in Special Collections. Pankey obtained degrees from the University of Missouri at Columbia, B.S., 1981 and the University of Iowa, M.F.A., 1983. He taught at Washington University from 1987 to 1996 and is now Professor of English at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. He was awarded the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1984 for his collection, For the New Year. Since then he has written other books including his collections, Heartwood: Poems (1988), The Late Romances: Poems (1997), Apocrypha : poems (1991) and Cenotaph (2000). His work has been supported by fellowships from The Ingram Merrill Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.