Joe Bolton

Who was Joe Bolton?

Joe Bolton was an American poet.

He was born in Cadiz, Kentucky. He completed a Masters degree at the University of Florida in 1988. In 1990, after completing his M.F.A., he committed suicide. He published three books of poetry.

Bolton's work represents the convergence of several important currents in American poetry and culture. In methodology, he represents a continuation of free-verse that runs from Whitman, through Eliot, and very importantly, through the post-Eliot American poets who wrote a free verse that sought to purge itself of the eltism inherent in the Eliot-Pound school of Modernism. In the sense that Bolton wrote of ordinary life and ordinary people, his work shares qualities found in the work of William Stafford. That Bolton's work appeared in the now-retired Kentucky journal Plainsong which championed Stafford's work, is evidence of this kindred spirit. Plainsong was published by Bolton's former professor at Western Kentucky University, Frank Steele and his wife Peggy Steele, co-authors of Singing into That Fresh Light. Bolton's work, in its concern with nature and ordinary people, shares many qualities with the late twentieth century American poetry published outside of New York and California.