# Dennis Cooley

Dennis Cooley (born 1944) is a Canadian writer of poetry and criticism, a retired university professor, and a vital figure in the evolution of the prairie long poem. He was raised on a farm near the small city of Estevan, Saskatchewan in Canada, and currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Cooley's self-proclaimed influences in writing are William Carlos Williams, H.D., Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, E.E. Cummings, Eli Mandel, Andrew Suknaski, Daphne Marlatt, bpNichol, Michael Ondaatje, and Robert Kroetsch.

## Early life

As a student, Cooley held a variety of different labouring jobs during the summers. First attending secondary schooling at the University of Saskatchewan, Cooley obtained with added Distinction his Bachelor of Education Degree in 1966, a High Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1967 and afterwards upgraded to his Masters of Arts Degree on Stephen Crane's imagery and symbolism in 1968.
Cooley later moved to New York state to attend the University of Rochester. It was there that Cooley prepared the research for his doctorate on the San Francisco-born American poet, Robert Duncan. He received the Ph. D in 1971.

## Career

From 1972 to 1973, Cooley was employed within the Blakeney Government in Saskatchewan as an executive assistant. Apart from this, most of Cooley's working life has been teaching English.
He has worked at St. John's College since 1976 as the Organizer of Literary Conferences within the University of Manitoba and taught Early Modern and Contemporary poetry, specializing in Robert Duncan, Dorothy Livesay, Margaret Atwood, Robert Kroetsch, Eli Mandel, Prairie Literature, the Long poem in the Twentieth Century, Canadian Writers in Self-construction, Fundamentals of Literary Theory, American Literature, Creative Writing, Poetry & Media 1994–1995, Narratology & Postcolonialism. He retired from in 2011.
He has since helped start create the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, and is currently President. The Guild, founded in 1981 in Aubigny, Manitoba as a support group for Manitoba writers, offers workshops, conducts local reading groups and a peer support network for enhancing and encouraging other writers of all skill levels.
Cooley is also an editor, and from 1975 to 1976 was the Assistant Editor on the Journal of Canadian Fiction, the Poetry Editor of Arts Manitoba from 1978 to 1979 and 1982–1983, the Contributing Editor to Border Crossings from 1989 to 1993, as well as the Editor at the Pachyderm Press from 1993 onward. He also served as the Workshop Leader at the Sage Hill Writing Experience in 1992, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Cooley is a founding editor of the Turnstone Press in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which was created in 1976 in a local Winnipeg pub. Turnstone promotes authors who are either landed immigrants or Canadian citizens, with fifty percent featuring local Manitoba content and Manitoban writers.

## Writing

Cooley specializes in different genres of poetry; such as literary travel, literary criticism, and the long poem. He shows special interest in Canadian Literature, American Writing, modern and postmodern writing, the languages of orality and print, poetry and politics, and literary theory. To date, Cooley has published a dozen volumes of poetry, and over a hundred various articles, columns, reviews, and interviews.
Cooley has travelled abroad to share his talent by giving workshops, lectures and readings to places such as Ukraine and Russia (Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Chernivtsi, and Moscow) in May 1991, to the World Poetry Conference in Portugal in May 1995 and again in May 2001, Berlin in August 2002, Poland in April 1999, and Spain in December 1998. To benefit those who don't read his native language of English, some of his work has been translated into Portuguese, German, Chinese and Ukrainian.
Cooley gave his time to the University of Augsburg in the summer of 1996 by being the Canadian Studies guest professor.
Cooley is currently keeping busy by working on personal travel journals, poetry books, and a plethora of essays.

## Recognition

Cooley is the recipient of twelve Manitoba Book Awards, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won or been nominated for the following:
* (1967-1968) University of Saskatchewan Teaching Fellowship.
* (1968-1971) Canada Council award for graduate study.
* (1968-1971) University of Rochester Tuition Scholarships.
* (1975) University of Manitoba Research Grant to work on the Duncan papers in the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.
* (1979) Olive Beatrice Stanton award for excellence in teaching.
* (1981-1982) SSHRC Leave Fellowship.
* (1987) Manitoba Arts Council Award to write a screen play based on Bloody Jack.
* (1987) University of Manitoba outreach award.
* (1988) Perishable Light nominated for McNally Robinson Book Award.
* (1989) Western Magazine Award for arts commentary.
* (1990) Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies, University of Trier, West Germany— May–July.
* (1990) Featured reader at Moorhead State University in the Thomas McGrath reading series.
* (May 5, 1995) City of Estevan official Dennis Cooley day.
* (1996) Guest Professor in Canadian Studies at Universität Augsburg.
* (2000) Irene nominated for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.
* (2000) Named "Favourite Poet" in Write: Readers' Choice poll.
* (2001) Irene nominated for McNaly Robinson book of the Year Award.
* (2012) Departmental Distinguished Lecturer of the Year Award from the University of Windsor, Ontario for his Lecture A Lover's Question: Staging Romance in Kroetsch's The Sad Phoenician.