The Beat

David Baker and Stanley Plumly

July 24, 2026·14 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

David Baker is a poet, educator, editor, and literary critic. His most recent books are Swift: New and Selected Poems, Whale Fall, and Transit. In 1984, he began teaching at Denison University, in Granville, Ohio, where he now serves as an emeritus professor. He has also taught in writing programs and writers’ workshops around the country, including the Hellbender Gathering of Poets, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College, and others. For many years he was Poetry Editor of The Kenyon Review. Stanly Plumly was born in Barnesville, Ohio in 1939, and he grew up in Virginia and Ohio. He earned a BA from Wilmington College and a PhD from Ohio University. He published numerous books of poetry, and his work won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award, The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and eight Pushcart prizes. He taught at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, Columbia University, the University of Houston, and the University of Maryland. He was poet laureate of Maryland from 2009 to 2018.Links:David BakerBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at Poets.org"Rather Than Nothing: On David Baker’s Transit: Poems" at Literary MattersA review of Transit in Publishers WeeklyVideo: "David Baker--Great Writers, Great Readings", a reading at Hofstra UniversityStanley PlumlyBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at Poets.orgStanley Plumly Memorial Digital Archive at GR2Video: "Poet Stanley Plumley Reads from His Collection Orphan Hours"--PBS News Hour

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