Jon Anderson

Who was Jon Anderson?

Jon Victor Anderson was an American poet.

Anderson's first book, Looking for Jonathan, was an inaugural selection of the Pitt Poetry Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1967. His second, Death & Friends, was nominated for the National Book Award.

He won a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1976; the Shelley Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America in 1983 for career achievement; and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry in 1986.

Born July 4 in Somerville, Massachusetts, to Henry Victor and Frances Anderson, he earned a BS from Northeastern University and a MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

He began his teaching career at the University of Portland 1968–72 as an instructor, becoming an assistant professor of creative writing. He was assistant professor of creative writing at Ohio University 1972–73, the University of Pittsburgh 1973–76, and University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1976–77. At the University of Arizona he served as associate professor from 1978 until his retirement. On February, 2008 they held a tribute reading.

Poets who studied under Anderson include Agha Shahid Ali, Michael Collier, Stuart Dischell, Loren Goodman, Tony Hoagland, Peter Oresick, David Rivard, and David Wojahn.