Van K. Brock

Van K. Brock has a BA from Emory University and graduate degrees from the University of Iowa and the Writers' Workshop. Since 1970, he has taught at Florida State University, where he is a Professor of English and a former director of the Writing Program.

Brock's poetry includes Unspeakable Strangers (Anhinga Press), The Hard Essential Landscape (Contemporary Poetry Series, University Presses of Florida); several chapbooks; poems in journals--including The American Voice, Georgia Review, New England Review/Breadloaf Quarterly, New Yorker, North American Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and Yale Review; and in anthologies--including Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms, The Made Thing: Contemporary Southern Poetry, Blood to Remember: Poets on the Holocaust, and Sweet Nothings: The Poetry of Rock 'n' Roll.

Brock is the founder and former director of Anhinga Press, founder and former faculty sponsor of Sun Dog: A Literary Arts Journal, and founder and editor-in-chief of International Quarterly, a non-profit journal of art and writing in all genres and from all origins.


Van K. Brock's most recent book, Unspeakable Strangers (1995), "is composed of several sequences of poems about or related to the Holocaust," and is available from:

Anhinga Press
P.O. Box 10595
Tallahassee, FL 32302
ISBN 0-938078-42-9
US $12.00

What others have said about Unspeakable Strangers:

"They are alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, subjective and objective, and, I think, brilliant and yes, painful, but with the necessary pain, if we are to remain human. I've read other treatments of the same subject, but these, I think, are indispensable." --Judith Hemschemeyer

"...very ambitious and I think quite successful. I like even what I would call their moral earnestness and the--at times--coolness with which it's delivered." --Donald Justice

"These are very bold and powerful poems about [of course] practically the most difficult theme in the world. I read them with increasing admiration for both [the] mastery of imagery and control. Never once [do they] slip into the sentimental and that in itself is an achievement. But mainly I am impressed by the pervasive music, the requiem sound." --William Styron


Individual subscriptions to International Quarterly are $30 for one year (four issues); $55 for two years (eight issues); and $75 for three years (12 issues). Library and institutional rates are $40 a year, $70 for two years, and $100 for three years. Add $5 per issue for air delivery. Payment is requested in U.S. currency. Sponsors and corporate memberships are $50 to $2500 and include a subscription. Send subscriptions, memberships, queries to:

International Quarterly
P.O. Box 10521
Tallahassee, FL 32302-0521
Tel (904) 224-5078
Fax (904) 224-5127


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