Jan Beatty's "Mad River" won the
Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize of the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1994. She is presently a
faculty member in the
English Department at the University of Pittsburgh. She has received various writing
fellowships from the Ucross Foundation, the Pennslvania Council on the Arts, and Yaddo. She was
awarded the
Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry from the Tulsa Arts and
Humanities Council in 1990. She attended the University of
West Virginia (BS) and the University of Pittsburgh (MFA). She hosts and produces
Prosody. Her second book of
poems, Ravenous, was published in 1995.
An
avid,
rabid opponent to
poetry slams, she actually has advised
poets not to attend
poetry slams because it will “ruin their voice.” Her
opinion is actually based on personal
experience regarding the behavior of deceased poet
M. Christian Robinson who
mercilessly beat his girlfriend. Jan Beatty
slammed during 1994 and 1995 and appeared in a poetry slam in the 3rd stage of
Lollapalooza during 1994.