T.R. Hummer directs domestic initiatives for Piper Center for Creative Writing

Accomplished poet and literary critic T.R. Hummer is leading two major creative writing efforts at ASU. He is director of ASU’s top-ranked creative writing program, and, since last fall, director of domestic initiatives for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.

Jewell Parker Rhodes, who served as artistic director of the Piper Center for Creative Writing since its inception in 2003, took on new responsibilities as director of global engagement for the Piper Center for Creative Writing.

“Creative writing and Piper are at an exciting and challenging critical mass, as the result of decades of dedicated work on the part of creative writing faculty, and five years of groundbreaking and program building on the Piper Center side,” says Hummer.

“Now with more faculty and more staff on board, the energy and potential are unparalleled. There is an enormous amount of work to do, but the rewards for us all will be great,” he says.

Hummer is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently, “The Infinity Sessions” (2005) and “Useless Virtues” (2001). His poems have appeared in such high profile journals as the New Yorker, the Hudson Review, New England Review, Paris Review and the Georgia Review.

He also has a strong background in publishing. Hummer spent five years as editor of the University of Georgia’s award-winning literary journal the Georgia Review, before traveling to Arizona in the summer of 2006 to direct ASU’s creative writing program.

“Having served as editor of the Georgia Review, Terry Hummer brought his strong reputation as a poet and his important ability to network with eminent writers to the creative writing program at ASU,” says Deborah Losse, dean of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “He has been focusing on the regional and national activities of the Piper Center for Creative Writing, as Jewell Parker Rhodes increased her focus on global engagement.”

A native of Macon, Miss., Hummer earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi and completed his doctorate at the University of Utah.

His first academic post was at Oklahoma State University, where he was poetry editor for the Cimarron Review. He published his first two full-length books of poetry, “The Angelic Orders” (1982) and “The Passion of the Right-Angled Man” (1984), before heading to Kenyon College to become editor of the Kenyon Review.

Hummer also edited the New England Review before he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry in 1993 and relocated to Eugene, Ore., where he directed the graduate program in creative writing at the University of Oregon. In 1997 he returned to the South to become senior poet in the master of fine arts program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

He moved further south when he was named editor of Georgia Review.

Hummer has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, and two Pushcart Prizes.

A veteran saxophone player and a self-described aficionado of jazz and blues music, Hummer was a member of the Richmond-based blues band Little Ronnie and the Grand Dukes during his time at VCU.

Tom McDermott, tom.mcdermott@asu.edu
480-727-0818
Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing