Lewis Turco was born in Buffalo, New York on May 2, 1934. He received his BA from the University of Connecticut in 1959 and his MA from the University of Iowa in 1962. His first full-time position as an instructor of English was at Fenn College (later Cleveland State University). After starting a successful program in contemporary poetry with a visit to the campus from W.D. Snodgrass on October 13, 1961, he founded the Cleveland Poetry Center in 1962, of which he was the director until 1964. He then served as Assistant Professor at Hillsdale College in 1964-65. From 1965 until 1996, he taught at State University College of New York at Oswego, where he was also Poet-in-Residence from 1995 until his retirement in 1996. At SUNY-Oswego he founded and directed the Program in the Writing Arts. Turco began his publishing career in 1960, with the publication of First Poems. Sometimes using the pseudonym Wesli Court (an anagram of Lewis Turco), he has continued to publish poetry, books about poetry, such as the New Book of Forms and Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, and other works related to the writing arts. He has collaborated with other artists on such projects as "While the Spider Slept," a ballet based upon his poem "November 22, 1963," performed by the Swedish Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet; The Fog, a chamber opera with Dutch composer Walter Hekster; and Bordello: PoemPrints with printmaker George O'Connell. He has received many awards, among them the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Alumni Association of the University of Connecticut, the Bordighera Poetry Prize, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ashland University, and the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. He is now retired from University teaching and from operating an antiquarian bookshop in Maine.
From the guide to the Lewis Turco collection, 1962-2004, (Cleveland State University)
