Robert Fitterman

1959 –

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 16, 1959, Robert Fitterman spent his childhood in Creve Coeur, Missouri. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MA from Temple University.

He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Now we are friends (Truck Books, 2011); Rob the Plagiarist, (Roof Books, 2009); Sprawl: Metropolis 30A (Make Now Press, 2009); The Sun Also Also Rises: A Hemingway Reader (No Press, 2008); war, the musical (Subpress, 2006), Metropolis 30: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edge Books, 2004), Metropolis 16-29 (Coach House, 2002), Metropolis 1-15 (Sun & Moon Press, 2000), and many more.

With the poet Vanessa Place, he co-authored Notes On Conceptualisms (Ugly Duckling, 2009), a prose exploration of conceptual writing. He also edited the anthology Collective Task (Patrick Lovelace Editions, 2009), featuring a large-scale collaboration between poets Mónica de la Torre, Stacy Doris, and Juliana Spahr, among others.

About his writing practice, Fitterman says, "Experimental poetry has a long shelf life. Even if the community is small, the conversation could be vital to the future of the art...Beyond the numbers, what's crucial is to articulate, foster, and engage in a conversation that speaks to the dialogues of the day (and there may be many)."

About Fitterman's poems, Bruce Andrews wrote: "They valorize themselves not so much by vernacular sampling (which is nothing new, even if it still scandalizes the clerisy) as by the rich and risky attentiveness of their prosodic choices. Relation is it."

Currently, he teaches writing and poetry at New York University and at the Bard College, Milton Avery School of Graduate Studies, and lives in New York City.