Brian Blanchfield is a poet and essayist whose most recent book is Proxies: Essays Near Knowing—a collection equal parts cultural studies and dicey autobiography, published by Nightboat Books and winner of a 2016 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. His first two books, both poetry, are Not Even Then (University of California Press) and A Several World (Nightboat), which received the 2014 James Laughlin Award. His essays and poetry have appeared in Harper’s, BOMB, The Nation, The Paris Review, Brick, StoryQuarterly, Lana Turner, and other publications; and two long sequences—one poetry, one prose—are available as chapbooks: The History of Ideas, 1973-2012 (Spork Press, 2013) and Correction. (Essay Press, 2016). A 2014-15 Howard Foundation Fellow, h
