Jack Ridl · Poet

Jack Ridl's collection Broken Symmetry (Wayne State University Press) was co-recipient of The Society of Midland Authors award for best book of poetry published in 2006. His Against Elegies was chosen by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins for The Center for Book Arts Chapbook Award. His chapbook, “Outside the Center Ring”, is a collection based on his childhood experience with the circus. In September 2009 CavanKerry Press will publish Losing Season, a collection that explores life during a long hard winter in a small town whose high school basketball team is enduring a losing year. He is also co-author with Peter Schakel of Approaching Literature from Bedford/St. Martin's Press.

Ridl, who is professor emeritus at Hope College, founded the Hope College Visiting Writers Series. More than 65 of his students have gone on to complete their MFA degrees and to publish nationally. In 1996, he was named by The Carnegie Foundation as Michigan Professor of the Year.